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PUBLICATION    NO.    31 


PUBLIC    PENSIONS   TO 
WIDOWS   WITH    CHILDREN 

A  STUDY  OF  THEIR  ADMINISTRATION 
IN  SEVERAL  AMERICAN  CITIES 


BY 


C.  C.  CARSTENS 


SECRETARY    OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   SOCIETY    FOR   THE 
PREVENTION    OF    CRUELTY    TO   CHILDREN 


RUSSELL   SAGE    FOUNDATION 

NEW   YORK   CITY 

1913 


PUBLIC    PENSIONS   TO     ' 
WIDOWS    WITH    CHILDREN 


A  STUDY  OF  THEIR  ADMINISTRATION 
IN  SEVERAL  AMERICAN  CITIES 


BY 


C.  C.  CARSTENS 

cr 

SECRETARY    OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS    SOCIETY    FOR   THE 
PREVENTION    OF    CRUELTY    TO    CHILDREN 


RUSSELL   SAGE   FOUNDATION 

NEW   YORK   CITY 

1913 


THE  TROW   PRESS 
NEW  YORK 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 5 

THE  PRESENT  EXTENT  OF  THE  PENSION  PLAN 7 

THE  CALIFORNIA  PLAN 8 

THE  KANSAS  CITY  PLAN 12 

THE  MILWAUKEE  PLAN 13 

THE  FUNDS  TO  PARENTS  ACT  OF  ILLINOIS 14 

Applications 15 

The  Case  Committee  and  the  Judge 16 

The  Investigations 16 

Study  of  One  Hundred  Pensioned  Families 18 

Probation   Officers'   Work 19 

•Adequacy  of  the  Pension .  20 

Decrease  of  Interest  and  of  Resources  other  than  Pension       ...  22 

Conclusions  Drawn  from  the  One  Hundred  Cases 22 

PLANS  IN  OTHER  STATES 24 

GENERAL  CONCLUSIONS 25 

APPENDIX— EXISTING  LAWS,  ORDINANCES,  ETC. 29 


712276 


PUBLIC  PENSIONS  TO  WIDOWS  WITH 
CHILDREN 

[For  the  three  months  beginning  August  I,  1912,  Mr.  Carstens 
was  commissioned  by  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation  to  study  the  actual 
working  of  public  pensions  to  widows  with  children  in  certain  western 
communities.  He  spent  several  weeks  in  San  Francisco,  six  weeks  in 
Chicago,  and  much  shorter  periods  in  Kansas  City,  Missouri,  and  in 
Milwaukee.  In  Chicago,  investigators  made,  under  his  direction,  a 
study  of  one  hundred  of  the  pensioned  families.  His  findings  are  printed 
as  a  contribution  toward  the  practical  study  of  a  question  now  attract- 
ing a  great  deal  of  attention.] 

INTRODUCTION 

IN  January  of  1909  about  two  hundred  men  and  women  met  in  the 
city  of  Washington  upon  the  invitation  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  held  what  was  known  as  the  White  House  Con- 
ference on  the  Care  of  Dependent  Children.     The  first  of  the  resolu- 
tions there  adopted  reads  as  follows: 

Home  life  is  the  highest  and  finest  product  of  civilization.  It  is  the  great 
molding  force  of  mind  and  of  character.  Children  should  not  be  deprived  of 
it  except  for  urgent  and  compelling  reasons.  Children  of  parents  of  worthy 
character,  suffering  from  temporary  misfortune  and  children  of  reasonably 
efficient  and  deserving  mothers  who  are  without  the  support  of  the  normal 
breadwinner,  should,  as  a  rule,  be  kept  with  their  parents,  such  aid  being 
given  as  may  be  necessary  to  maintain  suitable  homes  for  the  rearing  of  the 
children.  This  aid  should  be  given  by  such  methods  and  from  such  sources 
as  may  be  determined  by  the  general  relief  policy  of  each  community,  pref- 
erably in  the  form  of  private  charity,  rather  than  of  public  relief.  Except 
in  unusual  circumstances,  the  home  should  not  be  broken  up  for  reasons  of 
poverty,  but  only  for  considerations  of  inefficiency  or  immorality. 

These  principles  had  long  been  held  by  many  members  of  this  Con- 
ference, but  they  were  then  for  the  first  time  crystallized  into  compact 
form  and  published  so  widely  as  to  awaken  all  parts  of  the  country  to 
a  realization  of  their  importance.  Many  went  away  from  that  Con- 
ference convinced  of  their  universal  application,  and  took  active  steps 
to  reduce  the  population  of  existing  child-caring  institutions  and  to 
prevent  the  creation  of  any  new  ones  in  their  several  communities. 
The  resolutions  adopted  by  this  White  House  Conference  were  with- 
out doubt  the  strongest  single  factor  in  developing  the  sentiment  for 
widows'  pensions  which  has  found  such  strong  and  widespread  expres- 
sion during  the  last  few  months. 

The  policy  of  some  of  the  better-equipped  private  societies  of  pro- 
viding a  lump  sum  by  the  week  or  month,  often  called  a  pension,  with- 


out  which  the  mother  and  her  dependent  children  would  be  separated, 
has  during  the  last  few  years  gained  wide  favor,  and  the  demand  in 
the  nation  for  the  general  adoption  of  such  a  policy  has  rapidly  grown. 

To  these  demands  for  keeping  mother  and  children  together  by 
means  of  adequate  aid  has  been  added  a  third  demand,  that  the  payment 
be  looked  upon  as  a  pension  in  return  for  the  service  which  the  mother 
is  rendering  the  state  by  the  fact  of  her  motherhood,  such  aid  being 
made  necessary  by  her  widowhood.  It  is  pointed  out  that  this  payment 
bears  an  analogy  to  those  made  by  the  state  or  nation  to  soldiers,  sailors, 
or  other  servants  who  have  rendered  public  service,  and  who  have 
grown  old  or  have  been  disabled  in  the  pursuit  of  their  duties.  It  is 
from  this  supposed  analogy  that  the  term  "  widow's  pension  "  has  in 
the  minds  of  most  people,  during  these  recent  months  of  growing  in- 
terest in  the  subject,  acquired  the  meaning  of  a  stated  sum  from  public 
rather  than  private  sources. 

Besides  these  influences  inclining  the  general  public  toward  widows' 
pensions,  there  must  be  added  the  relief  principles  enunciated  in  the  recent 
Minority  Report  of  the  English  Royal  Poor  Law  Commission,  which 
have  gained  a  rather  wide  acceptance  among  certain  groups  of  social 
workers  in  this  country. 

The  theory  upon  which  pension  legislation  has  been  based  so  far 
in  this  country  is  that  children  are  being  separated  from  their  mothers 
for  reasons  of  poverty  only,  and  that  children  are  coming  before  our 
juvenile  courts  for  forms  of  waywardness  or  delinquency  which  the 
court  believes  to  be  due  to  the  lack  of  the  necessary  care  which  the 
mother  is  capable  of  providing,  but  which  she  is  prevented  from  giving 
because  of  the  necessity  of  going  out  to  earn  the  support  for  herself 
and  her  children. 

The  term  "  dependent  children  "  does  not  have  the  same  meaning 
in  every  state.  In  most  states,  the  class  of  dependent  children  includes 
neglected  as  well  as  dependent  children,  and  in  certain  states  it  includes 
a  considerable  number  of  those  that  in  other  states  would  be  classed 
as  wayward.  When,  therefore,  it  is  stated  that  children  have  been  com- 
mitted to  institutions,  before  one  can  reach  a  conclusion  regarding  the 
number  of  children  that  have  been  taken  from  homes  because  of  poverty 
only,  it  is  necessary  to  separate  from  this  total  the  number  that  have 
been  removed  because  of  the  neglect,  crime,  cruelty,  drunkenness  or 
other  vice  of  the  parents,  so  that  they  might  have  a  better  home  than 
the  parent  has  been  able  or  willing  to  provide.  We  must  also  deduct 
the  number  that  were  removed  because  of  the  children's  own  wayward- 
ness, with  which  the  home  was  unable  to  cope. 

This  lack  of  distinction  between  neglected,  wayward  and  dependent 
children  is  at  the  foundation  of  much  loose  thinking  on  this  subject, 
and  at  final  analysis  the  number  of  children  who  have  been  removed 
from  their  mothers  because  of  poverty  alone  is  found  to  be  only  a  very 
small  percentage  of  those  in  these  various  institutions.  That  there  are 
children  in  institutions  or  in  the  care  of  children's  societies  because  of 


poverty  alone  is  unquestionably  true,  but  it  is  essential  that  one  should 
have  a  fairly  clear  idea  of  their  number,  so  as  to  determine  the  advis- 
ability of  developing  an  entirely  new  form  of  public  aid  to  provide  for 
this  evil. 


THE   PRESENT   EXTENT  OF  THE   PENSION    PLAN 

AS  is  common  in  other  forms  of  invention,  the  beginnings  of  this 
movement  are  discovered  in  a  number  of  places  almost  simultane- 
ously.    When   the  country  at  large   became   interested,   it  was 
found  that  at  least  four  cities  had  already  made  plans  for  the  public 
pensioning  of  mothers  with  dependent  children,  each  of  which  had  been 
developed  without  waiting  to  learn  from  the  experience  of  the  others. 

The  plan  in  San  Francisco  was  started  about  four  years  ago  without 
any  special  statute.  The  law  permitting  Kansas  City,  Missouri,  to 
provide  the  pension  from  public  funds  was  passed  April  II,  1911.  The 
Illinois  law  became  operative  July  I,  1911,  and  Milwaukee,  without  a 
special  statute,  began  its  pension  plans  in  April,  1912.  During  the  fall 
of  1912,  St.  Louis  has  been  added  on  the  basis  of  a  city  ordinance  recent- 
ly passed,  and  Colorado  by  initiative  legislation  passed  a  law  in  Novem- 
ber, 1912. 1 

1  See  Appendix  (p.  29,  sq.)  for  the  various  legal  provisions  authorizing  these 
pension  plans.  In  Colorado  the  petition,  signed  by  the  requisite  number  of 
voters,  which  placed  this  proposal  on  the  ballot,  gave  the  proposed  act  in  full, 
but  with  no  title  other  than  the  name  of  the  act  to  which  the  proposed  act 
was  amendatory.  It  was  provided  by  the  petition  that  each  voter  might  de- 
posit a  ballot  on  which  should  be  printed  the  words  "For"  or  "Against  [as 
the  case  may  be]  the  Mothers'  Compensation  Act,  being  an  Act  to  Amend  an 
Act,  Concerning  Dependent  and  Neglected  Children,  and  Permitting  Keeping 
Such  Children  in  Family  Homes,  and  for  Workhouses  for  Men  Convicted  of 
Non-Support."  A  summary  and  explanation  of  the  purpose  of  the  act  was 
attached  to  this  petition.  Although  the  act  allows  the  pensioning  of  fathers 
as  well  as  mothers — the  condition  being  that  the  "  parent  or  parents  of  such 
dependent  or  neglected  child  are  poor  and  unable  to  properly  care  for  such 
child,  but  otherwise  are  proper  guardians,  and  it  is  for  the  welfare  of  such 
child  to  remain  at  home  " — this  summary  was  headed  in  large  type,  "  MOTH- 
ERS' COMPENSATION  ACT,"  and  4t  was  explained  that  the  measure  was 
"  for  the  better  protection  of  mothers  and  dependent  children  of  the  State 
through  the  following  plan:  i.  In  all  worthy  and  proper  cases  of  needy  moth- 
ers of  dependent  children,  it  empowers  the  court  to  pay  the  mother  to  stay 
at  home  and  take  care  of  the  children.  ...  It  compels  the  State  in  proper 
cases  to  compensate  rather  than  punish  the  mothers  of  children,  as  at  present, 
because  of  their  poverty  or  misfortune."  + 

As  the  act  is  quite  long  and  is  complicated  wittf  other  provisions  besides 
the  pensioning  of  parents,  it  is  the  summary  that  .yndoubtedly  was  usually 
read.  In  the  interest,  therefore,  of  intelligent  action  it  must  be  regarded  as 
a  misfortune  that  not  once  in  the  summary  was  a  hint  given  that  the  act 
allowed  parents'  pensions  as  well  as  mothers'  pensions. 

The  act  was  approved  by  the  voters.  On  December  9,  1912,  however,  an 
opinion  was  rendered  by  the  city  attorney  of  Denver  to  the  effect  that  its 
provisions  for  the  appropriation  of  funds  are  not  mandatory  in  that  city. 


THE   CALIFORNIA   PLAN 

HE  Constitution  of  California  authorizes  the  granting  of  aid  to 
private  institutions  for  the  care  of  orphans,  half-orphans  or  aban- 
*  doned  children,  and  under  this  provision  the  state  is  paying  to 
such  institutions  $100  a  year  for  an  orphan  and  $75  for  a  half -orphan, 
and  $11  a  month  for  the  care  of  an  abandoned  child.  This  section  of 
the  Constitution  also  authorizes  such  payments  to  any  city,  county  or 
town  providing  for  such  dependents.  The  Juvenile  Court  Law  of 
California,  on  the  other  hand,  authorizes  the  payment  of  not  to  exceed 
$11  per  month  for  dependent  children  committed  to  any  private  institu- 
tion. Under  the  provisions  of  this  law  most  of  the  counties  of  Califor- 
nia make  payments  to  private  agencies  for  the  care  of  their  dependent 
children,  and  then,  under  the  constitutional  provision,  recoup  themselves 
from  state  funds  as  far  as  is  possible  at  the  above-mentioned  rates. 

After  the  San  Francisco  earthquake,  when  the  number  of  depend- 
ent children  was  particularly  large  and  the  institutions  available  for  their 
care  had  become  quite  overcrowded,  additional  provision  was  needed  for 
the  care  of  dependent  children.  It  was  then  suggested  that  the  boarding- 
out  method  be  introduced  for  their  care,  and,  in  1908,  the  Children's 
Agency  of  the  San  Francisco  Associated  Charities  and  the  Catholic  Hu- 
mane Bureau  were  organized  as  boarding-out  agencies.  It  soon  became 
apparent  that  children  came  into  the  care  of  these  two  agencies  who 
were  dependents  but  who  had  mothers  wholly  suitable  to  provide  for 
them.  The  plan  was  therefore  inaugurated  of  returning  the  children  to 
such  mothers,  provided  all  the  home  conditions  were  favorable,  and 
making  the  county  or  state  payments  to  them  (through  the  private 
agencies)  that  would  otherwise  have  been  made  to  the  institutions. 

The  amount  available  for  these  returned  children  that  are  half- 
orphans  is  so  small  that,  in  many  instances,  where  there  are  no  additional 
resources  in  the  family,  the  county  is  asked  to  pay  the  maximum  of  $i  I 
a  month,  with  the  understanding  that  it  will  recoup  itself  from  the 
state  as  far  as  it  can  do  so  under  the  Constitution.  Even  these  sums 
are  not  sufficient  in  a  good  many  instances,  and  an  analysis  of  the  aid 
provided  in  a  considerable  number  of  cases  would  seem  to  show  that 
at  least  one  dollar  of  supplementary  aid  is  required  from  private  sources 
for  every  two  dollars  drawn  from  the  public  in  order  to  meet  the  appar- 
ent needs  of  the  family. 

To  these  two  agencies  the  Hebrew  Benevolent  Society  was  later 
added,  so  that  in  1912  three  private  societies  were  having  dependent 
children  committed  to  them,  a  considerable  number  of  whom  were  there- 
upon returned  to  their  mothers,  or  to  their  parents  where  both  parents 
were  living. 

On  June  I,  1912,  the  Children's  Agency  of  the  Associated  Charities 
had  519  children  in  its  care.  Two  hundred  and  one  of  these  children 


were  boarded  at  public  expense  with  parents ;  x  while  282  were  boarded 
in  other  private  families,  18  were  in  children's  institutions,  16  were 
held  for  legal  control  only,  and  2  were  held  pending  investigation. 

The  plan  as  it  is  in  vogue  in  San  Francisco,  and  to  a  small  extent 
in  Fresno,  Berkeley,  Oakland,  Los  Angeles,  and  other  cities  of  Califor- 
nia, is  therefore  not  based  on  a  statute  directly  establishing  widows'  pen- 
sions. By  combining  a  section  of  the  Constitution  with  the  provisions  of 
the  Juvenile  Court  Law,  a  form  of  state  payment  for  the  support  of  de- 
pendent children  has  been  made  possible.  Payments  are  made  under 
these  provisions  for  the  support  of  children  where  the  father  has  deserted ; 
where  he  has  been  divorced  and  alimony  either  has  not  been  allowed  or 
has  not  been  enforced  by  the  machinery  of  the  court;  where  the  father 
is  in  prison;  where  he  is  suffering  from  some  chronic  ailment,  such  as 
tuberculosis,  heart  trouble  or  cancer;  and  to  mothers  for  the  care  of  de- 
pendent children  born  out  of  wedlock.  The  plan  is  therefore  a  fund 
to  parents  for  the  support  of  dependent  children  boarded  with  the 
mother.  By  their  commitment  to  any  one  of  the  three  private  societies 
of  San  Francisco,  the  children  are  placed  at  least  nominally  and  possibly 
legally  in  the  custody  and  control  of  that  particular  society.  Whether 
this  commitment  gives  the  private  society  any  legal  custody  as  against 
the  parent  is  not  clear  and  has  not  been  passed  on  by  the  Supreme  Court. 
The  commitment  has  been  made  not  for  the  purpose  of  changing  the 
child's  custody,  but  to  draw  from  public  funds  such  a  sum  as  state  or 
county  allows  for  the  support  of  the  dependent  child. 

This  payment,  often  called  the  pension,  is  being  made  at  the  present 
time  in  certain  instances  in  lieu  of  other  and  perhaps  more  difficult  but 
more  fundamental  solutions,  namely :  the  enforcement  of  a  statute  against 
desertion  of  wife  and  children;  the  enactment  of  a  bastardy  law;  and 
the  enactment  of  a  law  requiring  that  a  prisoner  shall  contribute  from 
his  labor  to  the  support  of  wife  and  dependent  children  while  he  is 
serving  sentence  imposed  upon  him  by  another  court. 

The  large  Red  Cross  relief  funds  that  became  available  for  San 
Francisco  after  its  great  earthquake  and  during  its  rehabilitation  period 
had  the  tendency  to  set  a  standard  of  money  relief  that  is  probably  not 
surpassed  and  perhaps  not  equaled  in  amount  elsewhere  in  the  United 
States.  Inevitably  family  solidarity,  which  has  never  been  greatly  em- 
phasized in  our  far  western  states,  has  become  weakened  by  this  accessi- 
bility of  relief,  and  relatives  have  relieved  themselves  of  the  responsibil- 
ities they  would  have  assumed  under  other  circumstances — a  tendency 
which  has  been  still  further  strengthened  by  the  public  pensions  that  be- 
came available  a  few  years  later.  These  circumstances  seem  also  to 
have  discouraged  systematic  inquiry  regarding  the  resources  of  relatives 
and  their  ability  and  disposition  to  aid.  Private  societies,  because  of  the 
disaster,  also  found  their  resources  crippled,  while  the  demands  upon 
them  were  increased.  Under  all  these  circumstances,  in  spite  of  the 

1  In  one  family  both  parents  were  dead  and  the  children  were  with  grand- 
parents.    In   another  the  children  were  with  a  married  sister. 


proverbial  generosity  of  San  Francisco's  well-to-do  citizens,  it  seemed 
necessary  to  have  additional  recourse  to  public  funds  for  the  care  of  the 
beneficiaries  of  these  private  societies. 

The  demand  for  additional  relief  funds  was  also  strengthened  by 
the  fact  that  the  standard  of  living  among  the  poor  of  San  Francisco 
seems  to  be  higher  than  in  most  other  parts  of  the  country,  and  especially 
than  in  the  large  cities  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard. 

A  careful  reading  of  sixty  pension  records  of  the  Children's  Agency 
of  the  Associated  Charities  would  go  to  show  that  suffering  would  re- 
sult in  most  instances  if  the  pension  then  being  paid  was  not  supple- 
mented. At  the  same  time  the  total  of  supplementary  aid  given  to  these 
families  has  been  decreased  somewhat  during  the  last  two  years,  and 
apparently  without  any  unusual  suffering.  Until  recently,  Red  Cross  re- 
lief funds  were  available  in  considerable  amount  for  this  supplementary 
aid;  but  now  that  those  are  practically  exhausted  an  increased  demand 
is  being  made  for  larger  pensions  than  the  state  and  county  payments  now 
make  possible. 

It  must  be  apparent  from  all  this  that  the  pension  plan  for  women 
with  dependent  children  is  but  one  element  in  the  whole  charitable 
scheme  of  San  Francisco,  and  that,  if  the  plan  is  to  be  continued,  either 
the  number  of  families  aided  must  be  reduced,  so  that  each  may  receive 
a  larger  sum,  or  the  state  and  the  city  of  San  Francisco  must  supply 
considerable  additional  sums  to  meet  the  needs  that  seem  to  exist.  To 
what  extent  the  community  can  meet  these  demands  at  the  standards 
of  living  and  of  relief  that  are  at  present  in  vogue  in  San  Francisco, 
it  is  hard  to  foretell. 

The  disbursing  of  the  pension  money  through  a  small  number  of 
private  societies  has  furnished  a  measure  of  supervision  for  the  families 
as  well  as  certain  safeguards  against  reckless  expenditures.  This  over- 
sight the  Juvenile  Court  of  San  Francisco  is  at  present  unable  to  provide 
with  its  limited  staff.  The  plan  now  in  operation  seems,  however,  quite 
a  temporary  one,  and  at  the  same  time  is  creating  a  sentiment  for  a 
direct  pension  system  without  the  private  agencies  as  intermediaries. 

While  the  boarding  of  the  dependent  child  in  the  mother's  home 
was  adopted  in  mitigation  of  the  evil  effects  of  a  system  of  public  pay- 
ments to  private  institutions,  it  is  extremely  doubtful  whether  an  ar- 
rangement by  which  the  private  society  visits  the  family  while  the 
public  purse  furnishes  the  relief,  is  a  wise  one  and  should  be  further 
extended.  It  would  seem  to  be  better  that  pensions  from  the  public 
treasury  should  be  paid  direct,  so  that  the  financial  responsibility  as  well 
as  the  charitable  oversight  might  be  thrown  upon  the  public,  and  that 
it  might  learn  all  the  terms  in  the  equation  and  determine  for  itself 
whether  the  return  that  the  state  is  getting  for  such  an  expenditure  is 
commensurate  with  the  amount  that  it  costs. 

The  present  plan  is  also  unsatisfactory  in  that  it  brings  increasing 
work  rather  than  decreasing  work  upon  the  private  relief  agency.  Most 
of  the  families  aided  from  the  public  treasury  must  have  supplementary 

xo 


aid  from  the  private.  Besides,  there  is  no  corresponding  amount  avail- 
able for  supervision,  and  so  this  increasing  demand  upon  the  public  treas- 
ury brings  increasing  demand  for  both  relief  and  supervision  from  pri- 
vate sources  which  they  are  unable  to  give  without  interfering  with  their 
other  tasks. 

That  the  present  system  in  California  does  not  meet  the  situation 
at  all  wisely  is  exemplified  by  the  rates  of  payment  for  the  care  of  de- 
pendents. A  full  orphan  or  an  abandoned  child  very  frequently  finds  a 
free  home,  and  yet  the  state  is  ready  to  pay  $100  a  year  for  the  support 
of  the  former  and  $121  for  the  support  of  the  latter,  while  the  widow's 
child  may  draw  from  the  state  only  $6.25  per  month. 

As  this  plan  may  work  out,  the  mother  in  the  household  where  the 
father  has  deserted  or  where  he  is  ill  or  absent  because  of  conviction  for 
crime,  may  receive  $11  a  month  per  child;  while,  when  the  mother  has 
been  left  destitute  by  the  death  of  the  breadwinner,  she  can  draw  only 
at  the  rate  of  $6.25  per  child  per  month.  The  fact  that  the  county 
in  many  instances  adds  to  the  state's  pension  is  only  additional  evidence 
of  the  plan's  inadequacy  and  of  its  unsatisfactoriness. 

The  work  of  the  Children's  Agency  seems  to  be  an  ingenious 
adaptation  on  the  part  of  the  Associated  Charities  to  the  community's 
needs  under  the  subsidy  system  now  in  vogue  in  California.  The 
mothers  with  whom  children  have  been  left  seem  on  the  whole  trust- 
worthy, co-operative,  and  reputable.  The  relations  existing  between 
the  working  staff  of  the  Agency  and  the  families  are  not  only  not 
bureaucratic  but  are  friendly  and  wholesome.  The  health  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  household  seems  unusually  well  looked  after  by  nurses 
and  visitors,  but  a  first  investigation  of  the  family's  own  resources  is  in 
many  instances  wholly  lacking  and  in  others  inadequate.  An  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  family's  life  during  the  pension  period  at  any  rate 
does  not  appear  upon  the  records,  and  the  family's  own  statements  seem 
frequently  to  be  taken  at  too  high  a  rating. 

The  number  of  children  committed  to  the  Hebrew  Benevolent  So- 
ciety has  remained  small,  for  the  families  of  Jewish  widows  of  San 
Francisco  are  largely  kept  together  from  generous  private  sources. 

The  Catholic  Humane  Bureau  is  receiving  an  increasing  number 
of  children  by  commitment.  Although  this  Bureau  has  the  aid  of  the 
various  parish  visitors  of  the  church,  the  number  of  its  own  agents  is 
wholly  inadequate.  Its  financial  resources  are  also  limited,  so  that  the 
supplementing  of  pension  funds  is  in  most  cases  out  of  the  question,  and 
the  unsupplemented  pension  funds  are  inadequate. 


ii 


THE   KANSAS  CITY   PLAN 

THE  plan  in  Kansas  City,  Missouri,  is  like  that  of  San  Francisco  in 
one  important  particular,  namely :  The  Juvenile  Court  determines 
the  advisability  of  paying  a  pension  to  the  mother  of  the  dependent 
children  and  so  is  the  central  factor  in  the  administration  of  the  pension. 

The  law  applying  to  Kansas  City  provides  a  pension  for  "  the  par- 
tial support  of  women  whose  husbands  are  dead  or  whose  husbands  are 
prisoners,  when  such  women  are  poor  and  are  the  mothers  of  children 
under  the  age  of  fourteen." 

According  to  this  law,  only  partial  support  may  be  paid  to  the 
mother.  On  the  other  hand,  it  requires  that  the  mother  shall  remain 
at  home.  These  two  requirements  have  had  a  most  unsatisfactory  effect. 
As  the  support  can  be  only  partial,  there  must  be  other  resources  avail- 
able in  the  family,  or  the  mother,  while  staying  at  home,  must  seek 
to  do  tasks  that  are  likely  to  be  underpaid,  and  by  that  means  become 
so  engrossed  with  the  work  which  shall  provide  the  balance  of  the  support 
that  the  real  purpose  of  the  law,  to  provide  satisfactory  mother's  care 
for  the  children,  tends  to  be  defeated. 

The  law  goes  on  to  state  that  "  the  allowance  to  each  of  such  women 
shall  not  exceed  ten  dollars  ($10)  a  month  when  she  has  but  one  child 
under  the  age  of  fourteen  (14)  years,  and  if  she  has  more  than  one 
child  under  the  age  of  fourteen  years,  it  shall  not  exceed  the  sum  of 
ten  dollars  ($10)  a  month  for  the  first  child  and  five  dollars  ($5)  a 
month  for  each  of  the  other  children  under  the  age  of  fourteen  years." 

During  the  month  of  September,  1912,  39  families,  with  114  chil- 
dren under  fourteen  and  36  over  fourteen,  were  pensioned  from  public 
funds.  The  total  of  payments  for  that  month  was  $493,  making  an 
average  of  $12.64  per  family  per  month  and  $4.33  per  child.  This  was 
not  exceptionally  low,  for  the  average  amount  of  aid  given  per  family 
per  month  for  the  first  year  of  the  law's  operation  was  $12.73,  which 
was  an  average  monthly  payment  of  $3.82  per  child. 

If  the  provision  for  partial  support  should  have  the  effect  of  en- 
couraging friends,  employers,  relatives  and  private  agencies  to  do  their 
part,  it  might  be  thought  of  as  a  salutary  one,  but  the  experience  in  San 
Francisco,  which  is  duplicated  by  that  in  Kansas  City,  is  that  all  other 
agencies  quickly  step  aside  when  a  public  pension  plan  begins.  That  this 
plan  does  not  very  adequately  meet  the  situation  of  the  widows  of 
Kansas  City  is  shown  by  the  small  demand  for  the  pension  on  the  part 
of  widows,  for  they  have  found  that  the  two  conditions  of  remaining 
at  home  and  of  partial  support  are  such  that  they  hesitate  to  accept  them. 

It  should  be  noted  that  Kansas  City  has  no  public  outdoor  relief, 
and  the  general  impression  prevails  that  the  amount  of  private  relief 
given  through  charitable  societies  is  not  large.  The  general  prosperity 
of  the  community  perhaps  has  made  large  relief  plans  unnecessary,  but 
it  is  not  strange  that,  in  view  of  the  absence  of  public  relief  and  the  un- 

12 


developed  state  of  private  relief,  some  other  form  of  systematic  aid 
should  have  been  undertaken. 

The  statute  under  which  Kansas  City  has  undertaken  its  task  makes 
it  possible  for  widows  and  the  wives  of  convicts  to  be  aided.  There 
was  considerable  expression  in  favor  of  adding  to  this  by  amendment 
the  children  of  families  in  which  the  father  was  insane.  Of  the  total 
number  of  39  there  was  but  one  where  the  man  was  in  prison,  and  his 
wife's  allowance  was  $12  a  month. 

Kansas  City's  plan  is  clearly  one  of  inadequate  relief.  The  Juven- 
ile Court  found  that  some  of  the  mothers  who  pleaded  poverty  as  the 
reason  for  asking  commitment  preferred  to  keep  their  children  at  home 
and  were  suitable  to  care  for  them.  It  found  no  provision  for  these 
mothers  and  so  developed  its  own.  Children  were  also  being  brought  in 
who  had  got  into  trouble  because  the  mother  found  it  necessary  to 
go  out  to  work  during  most  of  the  hours  of  the  day,  leaving  the  chil- 
dren so  much  to  their  own  devices  that  trouble  had  ensued.  The  judge 
believed  the  private  societies  unable  or  unwilling  to  aid  these  families. 
Besides,  he  found  the  city  without  outdoor  relief.  He  therefore  devised 
the  pension  law  to  meet  the  needs  as  he  saw  them — a  rather  natural 
result  of  an  inadequately  developed  charitable  plan  in  a  rapidly  growing 
industrial  and  commercial  city.  Kansas  City's  law  does  not,  however, 
provide  an  adequate  remedy,  nor  does  there  seem  to  be  such  a  working 
plan  between  the  court  and  the  private  societies  that  any  correct  division 
of  labor  has  been  arrived  at. 


THE   MILWAUKEE   PLAN 

MILWAUKEE  has  no  special  widows'  pension  statute.  When  it 
was  found  that  the  quarters  provided  in  the  Home  for  depend- 
ent children  of  Milwaukee  County  were  inadequate,  and  the 
question  of  additions  came  up,  it  was  arranged  that  the  board  of  trustees 
of  the  Home  appropriate,  in  all  instances  where  the  mother  was  found 
to  be  suitable,  a  certain  sum  to  allow  her  dependent  children  to  remain 
with  her.  As  the  children  were  committed  to  the  institution  through 
the  Juvenile  Court,  it  was  left  to  the  judge  to  determine  what  mothers 
should  be  so  pensioned,  and  left  to  the  trustees  to  administer  the  pension, 
by  making  payments  from  the  fund  upon  an  order  from  the  Juvenile 
Court.  This  plan  has  been  in  operation  since  about  April  I,  1912.  Up 
to  September  1st,  30  mothers  with  children  have  been  aided,  with  a  total 
sum  expended  of  $868.  In  the  month  of  September,  1912,  about  $400 
was  expended  for  the  aid  of  no  children,  which  is  at  the  rate  of  $3.63 
per  child  per  month.  Several  of  these  mothers  were  deserted  wives,  one 
was  a  divorced  woman,  and  one  the  wife  of  a  convict. 

There  does  not  seem  to  be  any  hesitation  on  the  part  of  the  Juvenile 
Court  of  Milwaukee  County  to  turn  to  public  outdoor  relief  to  sup- 
plement its  small  pension  allowances,  and  the  only  apparent  justification 

13 


for  having  two  forms  of  public  relief  seems  to  have  been  that  the 
trustees  of  the  Home  for  dependent  children  felt  that  they  could  spend 
in  pensions  a  part  of  what  it  would  have  cost  them  to  build  a  larger 
institution.  The  inadequacy  of  public  as  well  as  private  relief  in  Mil- 
waukee is  generally  admitted,  and  the  inadequacy  of  the  pension  plan 
is  perhaps  based  on  the  fear  that  if  such  amounts  were  given  as  would 
fully  provide  for  the  needs  of  the  families  in  question,  the  plan  would 
be  found  to  be  illegal  and  thus  lead  to  other  serious  complications. 

The  friends  of  the  plan  now  in  vogue  feel  the  need  of  definite  pen- 
sion legislation,  and  sentiment  is  being  created  in  favor  of  a  public  pen- 
sion for  women  with  dependent  children  in  cities  of  Wisconsin  of  the 
first  class,  namely,  in  Milwaukee.  This  sentiment  has  already  found 
expression  in  a  widows'  pension  plank  in  the  Republican  party's  state 
platform. 

THE   FUNDS  TO   PARENTS  ACT  OF    ILLINOIS 

THE  most  important  experiment  in  widows'  pensions  has  been  un- 
dertaken under  a  statute  which  was  passed  in  Illinois  and  came 
into  operation  on  July  I,  1911,  but,  as  far  as  known  (December, 
1912),  has  not  been  taken  advantage  of  in  any  of  the  counties  of  the 
state  except  Cook  County  in  which  Chicago  is  situated.     The  text  of 
the  law,  which  is  an  amendment  to  Section  7  of  the  Juvenile  Court  Law, 
is  as  follows: 

"  If  the  parent  or  parents  of  such  dependent  or  neglected  child  are 
poor  and  unable  to  properly  care  for  the  said  child,  but  are  otherwise 
proper  guardians,  and  it  is  for  the  welfare  of  such  child  to  remain  at 
home,  the  court  may  enter  an  order  finding  such  facts  and  fixing  the 
amount  of  money  necessary  to  enable  the  parent  or  parents  to  properly 
care  for  such  child,  and  thereupon  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  county 
board,  through  its  county  agent  or  otherwise,  to  pay  such  parent  or  par- 
ents at  such  time  as  said  order  may  designate  the  amount  so  specified  for 
the  care  of  such  dependent  or  neglected  child  until  the  further  order 
of  the  court." 

To  understand  this  law  it  is  necessary  to  recall  the  varying  meanings 
given  to  the  term  "  dependent  children."  In  Illinois  the  term  "  de- 
pendent children  "  includes  also  such  neglected  children  as  are  placed 
before  the  court  because  their  homes  are  so  bad  that  the  court  steps  in 
:and  requires  their  removal  to  institutions  or  to  other  homes.  In  view 
of  the  "  poverty  "  explanation  of  the  commitment  of  children  already 
referred  to  (p.  6),  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  number  of  commitments 
made  during  the  six  months  ending  June  30,  1911 — the  six  months  just 
preceding  the  enactment  of  the  Funds  to  Parents  Act — in  comparison 
with  the  commitments  in  the  same  months  a  year  later.  There  were 
.committed  to  the  various  private  institutions  of  Cook  County  in  the 
first  six  months  of  1911,  125  fewer  dependent  children  than  during  the 


corresponding  months  of  1912,  which,  since  the  pension  law  went  into 
effect,  were  the  months  in  which  the  granting  of  pensions  was  the  most 
active.  While  it  is  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  granting  of  pen- 
sions has  had  the  effect  of  increasing  the  number  of  dependent  children 
in  institutions,  on  the  other  hand  it  is  at  least  clear  that  the  number 
of  commitments  of  dependent  children  to  societies  and  institutions  has 
not  been  reduced  by  the  pensions.  The  increase  of  commitments  was 
due  to  other  causes  and  the  number  was  but  slightly,  if  at  all,  affected 
by  the  granting  of  pensions. 

APPLICATIONS. — From  July  I,  1911,  to  January  16,  1912,  there 
were  335  applications  for  pensions.  From  January  16,  1912,  to  Septem- 
ber 30,  1912,  there  were  1,115  applications,  making  a  total  of  1,450 
applications  to  September  3Oth,  inclusive.  The  number  of  pensions 
granted  up  to  September  3Oth  was  522,  which  affected  1,769  children. 
Of  this  number,  156  children  in  41  families  were  no  longer  pensioned 
on  September  3Oth,  the  number  on  September  3Oth  therefore  being  481 
families  and  1,613  children.  These  numbers  had  been  increased  to  503 
and  1,700  respectively  during  October.  The  amount  expended  for  pen- 
sions during  September  was  $10,922  and  during  October,  $i  1,713.  This 
last  amount  would  make  an  average  pension  expenditure  per  month  of 
$6.89  per  child  and  $23.28  per  family.  It  is  estimated  that  the  cost 
of  the  pensions,  exclusive  of  cost  of  administration,  will  be,  during  the 
next  year,  not  less  than  $200,000. 

When  the  plan  for  pensions  came  in  force,  the  Chicago  Juvenile 
Court  was  not  at  once  equipped  with  sufficient  probation  officers  to  make 
the  necessary  investigations,  and  it  was  not  until  after  a  large  number 
of  applications  for  pensions  had  been  accumulated  that  enough  probation 
officers  were  appointed  to  make  the  investigations  necessary  to  determine 
the  advisability  of  granting  a  pension,  and  to  supervise  the  family  intelli- 
gently when  a  pension  had  been  granted.  The  amount  of  investigation 
and  supervision  grew  so  rapidly  toward  the  end  of  1911,  and  the  force 
of  probation  officers  was  so  inadequate,  that  the  judge  of  the  Juvenile 
Court  asked  the  assistance  of  a  group  of  citizens  not  connected  with  the 
court  to  organize  themselves  into  a  citizens'  advisory  committee;  and, 
when  the  judge  also  asked  the  co-operation  of  private  agencies  in  sifting 
the  facts  in  the  pension  cases,  a  pension  case  committee  of  seven  was 
organized,  consisting  of  the  chief  probation  officer  and  his  deputy,  repre- 
sentatives of  the  United  Charities  and  a  group  of  other  private  non-sec- 
tarian societies  interested  in  the  work  of  the  Juvenile  Court,  together 
with  representatives  of  the  Jewish  Home-finding  Society,  the  St.  Vin- 
cent de  Paul,  and  other  Catholic  agencies  interested  in  children.  The 
chief  probation  officer  was  chosen  the  chairman  of  this  committee  but 
he  and  his  deputy  were  not  given  a  vote.  At  the  beginning,  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  county  relief  agent,  through  whose  office  the  payments 
are  approved,  also  sat  with  this  committee,  but  when  important  differ- 
ences of  opinion  on  the  advisability  of  pensioning  certain  families  arose, 
the  county  agent's  representative  withdrew  and  preferred  to  present  his 

'5 


facts   directly   to   the   judge — a   procedure  which   has   been   continued 
throughout  the  year. 

THE  CASE  COMMITTEE  AND  THE  JUDGE. — Since  January  16, 
1912,  this  case  committee  has  held  semi-weekly  meetings.  Their  recom- 
mendations have  been  based  in  most  cases  upon  the  facts  presented  by  the 
probation  officers  to  whom  the  individual  applications  for  pensions  had 
been  assigned  for  inquiry.  The  committee  has  not  hesitated  to  make  cer- 
tain inquiries  itself  through  its  members  when  it  has  not  been  satisfied 
with  the  facts  presented,  but,  as  a  rule,  the  decision  for  pension  has  been 
made  on  the  probation  officer's  presentation.  The  committee's  recom- 
mendations have  been  of  great  help  to  the  judge  in  deciding  what  families 
should  be  pensioned,  and  he  has  been  largely  guided  by  them  in  his 
decision  both  as  to  whether  the  pension  should  be  granted  and  as  to  its 
amount. 

Whenever  this  case  committee  has  decided  to  recommend  to  the 
judge  that  he  pension  a  certain  family,  the  name  and  address  are  given 
to  the  county  relief  agent's  representative,  to  give  him  an  opportunity 
to  satisfy  his  department  of  the  advisability  of  a  pension.  For  this  ten 
days  are  generally  allowed. 

When  the  case  comes  before  the  judge  for  a  hearing,  the  mother 
and  children  who  are  prospective  beneficiaries  of  the  pension  come  before 
him;  the  probation  officer  who  has  made  the  investigation  presents  the 
case;  the  deputy  chief  probation  officer  presents  the  recommendation  of 
the  case  committee,  and  the  county  agent's  representative  adds  such  data 
as  he  has  gathered  through  his  independent  investigation.  On  the  facts 
from  these  three  sources  the  judge  generally  reaches  his  conclusion  with- 
out much  difficulty.  The  county  agent's  representative  has  often  added 
materially  to  the  information  regarding  the  family's  financial  status, 
the  financial  status  of  the  relatives,  and  their  ability  to  help.  In  some 
instances  also  the  county  agent's  department  has  furnished  more  or  less 
reliable  information  regarding  the  family's  moral  character.  If  the 
judge  decides  that  a  pension  should  be  granted,  he  charges  the  mother 
with  the  duty  of  keeping  accurate  account  of  her  expenses,  and  promises 
visits  by  a  probation  officer,  whom  she  is  to  acquaint  with  her  financial 
expenditures  in  detail.  It  is  generally  arranged  that  the  supervision 
of  the  family  remain  in  the  hands  of  the  one  who  has  made  the  original 
investigation. 

THE  INVESTIGATIONS. — From  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the 
work  of  this  case  committee  for  a  period  of  six  weeks  and  from  a  patient 
hearing  of  the  presentation  of  cases  by  the  various  probation  officers,  the 
writer  did  not  acquire  much  confidence  in  the  kind  of  investigation  that 
the  probation  officers  make.  In  many  instances,  the  probation  officer, 
after  a  meager  investigation,  presented  certain  facts  which  were  wholly 
inadequate  for  determining  whether  or  not  a  pension  was  advisable,  and 
the  case  was  then  referred  back  to  the  probation  officer  for  additional 

16 


inquiry  on  certain  specific  points.  Not  infrequently  it  was  necessary 
to  refer  the  case  a  second  and  a  third  time.  Not  infrequently  meetings 
of  the  case  committee  were  held  at  which  deferred  cases  were  the  order 
of  the  day,  only  to  be  deferred  again  and  again.  The  committee's  work 
was  delayed,  their  time  was  spent  in  mere  technical  criticism,  and  the 
families  were  kept  from  a  week  to  a  month  longer  without  the  definite 
and  prompt  answer  which  they  anxiously  awaited  and  to  which  they 
were  entitled. 

The  separate  investigation  made  by  the  county  agent's  department, 
while  contributing  materially  to  the  facts  about  the  family,  was  found 
to  be  made  frequently  with  a  brutality  to  which  no  applicant  for  assist- 
ance should  be  exposed.  Insinuations  were  made  regarding  immoral 
conditions  in  the  neighborhood  inquiry  about  the  widow  which  were 
based  upon  neither  facts  nor  suspicions,  but  which  the  county  representa- 
tive threw  out  to  arouse  interest  in  his  inquiry,  and  by  means  of  which 
he  hoped  to  get  incriminating  information. 

With  some  exceptions,  the  group  of  thirteen  probation  officers  de- 
tailed for  this  work  were  political  appointees  of  the  president  of  the 
county  board  for  periods  of  sixty  days,  in  contravention  of  the  civil 
service  law.  As  a  whole  they  inspired  no  confidence  in  their  ability 
to  make  the  necessary  inquiries  with  such  tact  and  insight  as  to  determine 
the  wisdom  of  pensioning,  or  in  their  ability  to  supervise  a  pensioned 
family  in  such  a  way  that  their  work  would  develop  any  reasonable  plan 
or  any  good  results  for  the  family.  Not  only  were  a  considerable  num- 
ber incapable,  but  more  serious  charges  could  be  made  against  certain 
members  of  the  staff  which  would  entirely  unfit  them  for  important 
public  service.  Much  of  their  time  was  spent  in  dawdling  in  the  office, 
aside  from  the  great  waste  of  time  which  their  inefficiency  and  inexpe- 
rience made  necessary  at  the  meetings  of  the  case  committee,  and  in 
securing  additional  facts  about  the  same  family  by  repeated  visits.  The 
office  direction  of  their  work  was  also  very  meager,  much  time  and 
energy  were  lost  in  that  way,  and  a  good  deal  of  their  undirected  work 
was  done  to  little  purpose. 

In  certain  instances  the  probation  officers  made  an  investigation 
sufficiently  complete  to  answer  the  question  whether  a  pension  should 
be  granted  or  not,  but  wholly  inadequate  for  any  constructive  and  super- 
visory work  with  the  family.  It  must  be  conceded  that,  where  an  aver- 
age of  $23.28  per  month  is  provided  for  each  family,  temptations  come 
to  spend  money  recklessly  or  foolishly,  even  in  some  of  the  better  fam- 
ilies. A  pension  plan  of  this  sort  requires  careful  following  up,  so  that 
appropriate  suggestions  in  regard  to  the  health  of  mother  and  children, 
employment  of  older  children,  difficulties  in  discipline,  an  improved  diet, 
and  many  other  matters  that  come  up  in  family  life,  besides  advice  on 
expenditures,  may  be  made.  The  probation  officer's  original  investiga- 
tions, however,  seemed  to  develop  later  into  espionage  instead  of  friendly 
supervision. 

17 


STUDY  OF  ONE  HUNDRED  PENSIONED  FAMILIES. — By  means  of  a 
small  staff  of  trained  investigators,  an  inquiry  was  undertaken  by  the 
writer,  with  the  cordial  and  helpful  co-operation  of  the  judge,  the  chief 
probation  officer,  and  his  deputy,  who  not  only  encouraged  the  making 
of  such  an  inquiry,  but  were  eager  to  get  all  possible  help  in  making 
the  service  of  the  court  and  probation  department  as  valuable  to  the 
community  and  as  helpful  to  the  poor  family  as  the  volume  of  work 
and  the  character  of  the  staff  permitted.  The  circumstances  of  one 
hundred  pensioned  families  chosen  at  random  were  looked  into.  These 
families  were  visited  in  their  own  homes  and  a  patient  and  painstaking 
statement  was  obtained  from  them  regarding  their  present  situation,  the 
health,  schooling,  and  work  of  the  children,  the  mother's  health,  work 
and  fitness  to  care  for  them,  the  adequacy  of  the  pension,  the  items  of 
the  budget,  and  the  individual  expenditures  per  week.  Inquiry  was 
also  made  with  reference  to  the  family's  condition  before  the  death  of 
the  breadwinner,  and  after  the  breakdown  had  occurred  and  before  the 
pension  began.  In  addition,  other  inquiries  were  made  in  verification  if 
it  seemed  necessary. 

The  results  of  this  inquiry  are  summarized  in  the  following  table : 

Doubt- 
Yes.     No.    ful. 

Was  the  probation  officer's  investigation  adequate? 36        64 

Is  the  probation  officer  of  the  type  to  render  the  necessary 
service,  and  is  the  relationship  developing  between  mother 
and  probation  officer  satisfactory?  14  80  6 

Is  the  probation  officer's  supervision  over  the  health,  training 
and  diet  of  the  children,  and  over  the  family  budget,  ade- 
quate ?  ii  89 

Is  the  probation  officer's  supervision  resulting  in  the  develop- 
ment of  any  plan  and  in  good  results  for  the  family? 7  88  5 

Is  the  material  relief  adequate  ? 59         39  2 

Is  school  attendance  of  the  children  satisfactory? 72,       18         10 

Is  the  mother  with  her  children  a  reasonable  period  of  time?         86         13  i 

Is  there  evidence  in  the  mother's  and  children's  attitude  of 

undue  dependence  ? 24        74  2 

Have  the  church,  relatives,  employers  or  private  societies 
maintained  the  same  measure  of  interest  as  before  the  pen- 
sion began?  19  51  30 

Are  the  standards  of  the  family  such  that  the  home  should 

be  maintained  for  both  mother  and  children?   81         10  9 

Are  improvements  noted  over  the  care  that  the  family  had 

previous   to   the   pension   period  ?    58         35  7 

Are   there    conditions    in   the   family   that   need   remedy   by 

court  order  if  the  pension  is  to  be  continued?   32         55         13 

Was  the  application  due  to  the  existence  of  a  pension  plan 

from  public  funds  ?   34         64          2 

This  study  of  one  hundred  cases  has  led  to  conclusions  that  can 
but  have  weight  in  determining  the  value  of  the  pension  plans  in  force 
in  Chicago. 

18 


The  term  "  pension  "  is  not  a  new  one  in  the  vocabulary  of  agencies 
which  work  with  needy  families.  It  implies  an  accurate  analysis  of  the 
conditions  and  needs  of  the  family  and  a  knowledge  of  the  resources 
that  are  available  and  that  may  be  made  available.  In  addition  it  sug- 
gests that  the  whole  need  not  covered  by  the  family's  own  resources  be 
met  by  the  payment  of  sums  per  week  or  month,  so  that  the  family  may 
feel  the  assurance  of  having  the  budget  complete  and  of  knowing  just 
what  amount  they  may  count  upon  receiving  in  a  given  period.  It  fur- 
ther implies  the  principle  that  under  those  circumstances  the  family  is 
much  more  likely  to  develop  the  elements  of  self-respect,  self-confidence 
and  thrift  which  result  in  total  family  rehabilitation.  It  is  interesting 
to  observe  that  this  use  of  the  word  "  pension  "  is  no  different  from 
the  use  of  the  word  "  relief  "  as  it  exists  in  the  more  enlightened  policies 
of  societies  in  various  cities  and  commonwealths.  Therefore,  while  to 
call  the  sum  a  pension  may  be  a  matter  of  convenience,  no  vital  distinc- 
tion can  be  drawn  between  sums  that  are  said  to  come  as  a  matter  of 
justice  and  those  that  come  as  relief. 

PROBATION  OFFICERS'  WORK. — The  probation  officers'  investiga- 
tion was  one  test  to  which  the  records  were  subjected,  and,  giving  the 
officers  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  the  inquiry  shows  that  of  the  100  cases 
36  had  an  adequate  investigation,  while  64  of  the  investigations  were 
not  reasonably  satisfactory.  With  exceptions,  the  probation  officers 
were  entirely  unequipped  for  the  task.  Several  who  possessed  intelli- 
gence and  the  best  of  intentions  failed  because  of  their  lack  of  training 
and  experience.  The  investigations  in  some  cases  were  adequate  only 
because  they  had  been  again  and  again  returned  to  the  officers,  until  all 
the  necessary  facts  had  been  gathered. 

When  we  turn  to  the  probation  officers'  work  in  after-care,  we  find 
that  they  had  even  less  fitness  for  this  task  than  for  investigation.  Su- 
pervision that  will  be  of  value  presupposes  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
family  circumstances,  so  that  it  may  not  develop  into  espionage.  This 
knowledge  did  not  exist  except  in  rare  instances,  and  hence  friendly  and 
effective  supervision  could  not  result  even  if  there  had  been  time  for 
it.  Most  children  were  attending  school  regularly,  but  some  of  the 
probation  officers  were  unaware  as  to  whether  they  were  in  school  or  not. 
Other  children  were  out  of  school  or  were  going  irregularly  without 
the  probation  officers'  knowledge  of  it.  Of  the  100  cases  looked  into, 
in  72  families  the  school  attendance  was  satisfactory;  in  1 8  it  was  not 
satisfactory;  in  2  families  the  children  were  too  young  for  school  at- 
tendance, and  in  the  case  of  8  no  inquiry  was  made.  Inquiry  as  to 
whether  the  officers'  supervision  over  the  health,  training,  and  diet  of 
the  children  and  over  the  other  members  of  the  family  was  adequate* 
led  to  the  conclusion  that  only  in  1 1  families  was  this  the  case,  while  89 
did  not  have  sufficient  supervision  to  affect  the  family  in  these  impor- 
tant matters. 

When  we  come  to  study  the  results  of  the  supervision  with  the  idea 

19 


of  seeing  whether  any  planning  for  better  home  conditions  was  resulting, 
we  find  that  only  in  7  instances  does  there  seem  to  be  any  looking 
ahead  on  the  part  of  probation  officer  or  family  to  a  period  of  self-sup- 
port or  to  a  better  plan  for  the  family  life,  while  88  families  seemed  to 
be  living  on  without  the  development  of  any  plan  for  the  future.  These 
conditions  were  mostly  due  to  the  fact  that  the  probation  officers  did 
not  seem  to  be  of  the  type  to  render  the  necessary  service  and  to  develop 
the  relationship  between  mother  and  children  and  officer  which  would 
bring  positive  results.  In  only  14  families  are  wholesome  results  ap- 
parent from  the  supervision,  while  in  80  they  are  lacking.  In  2  other 
instances  the  probation  officer  is  of  the  right  type,  but  it  is  too  early  to 
see  results,  and  in  4  instances  the  results  are  doubtful. 

The  possibilities  of  good  supervision  on  the  part  of  the  probation 
department  are  shown  in  the  case  of  a  mother  with  three  children,  the 
oldest  being  a  boy  of  fifteen,  where  there  was  grave  doubt  as  to  the 
advisability  of  pensioning  at  all  because  of  the  uncertainty  of  the  mother's 
keeping  her  home  properly.  By  vigorous  following  on  the  part  of  the 
probation  officer  and  by  intelligent  advice,  the  mother  has  been  kept 
well  up  to  the  best  that  is  in  her. 

But  where  there  is  one  case  that  has  been  carefully  followed,  there 
are  at  least  two  that  show  the  opposite,  and  so  we  find  that  a  boy  of 
thirteen,  who  should  be  going  regularly  to  school,  is  working  regularly 
nine  hours  a  day  as  an  office  boy  for  a  corporation.  We  find  a  mother 
is  earning  five  cents  an  hour  at  home  work  while  her  husband  is  dying 
at  home  and  her  house  is  neglected.  A  household  found  at  all  times  in 
dirty  and  unsanitary  condition  was  never  brought  to  the  attention  of 
the  court  for  a  rehearing,  and  adult  relatives  are  found  sharing  the 
benefits  of  the  pension  without  contributing  in  any  way,  financially  or 
morally,  to  the  family's  welfare.  In  another  instance,  the  probation  offi- 
cer considered  that  there  was  no  harm  in  winking  at  the  breaking  of 
the  law  limiting  the  working  hours  of  women  and  children,  because 
she  saw  no  noticeable  injury  from  it,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  she  had 
made  no  systematic  effort  to  find  out  the  extent  of  such  injury,  and 
relatives  who  could  furnish  the  additional  money  provided  by  the  child's 
working  over  hours  were  not  followed  up.  In  another  instance  where 
there  was  good  reason  to  believe  the  woman  intemperate,  but  where  the 
neighbors  were  unwilling  to  give  evidence,  the  probation  officer  was 
satisfied  to  have  the  pension  continued  without  a  rehearing. 

ADEQUACY  OF  THE  PENSION. — Of  the  100  families  visited,  the 
pension  granted  was  deemed  adequate  in  59  cases,  inadequate  in  39, 
while  in  2  it  might  be  considered  doubtful.  This  inadequacy  is  appar- 
ent to  the  court,  and  the  judge  has  done  what  he  could  to  remedy  it. 
In  October,  1912,  of  the  522  families  pensioned,  52  that  were  receiving 
the  maximum  amount  granted  by  the  court  were  inadequately  aided, 
while  a  considerable  number  of  other  families  in  the  same  condition  were 
not  receiving  the  maximum.  At  the  request  of  the  court,  private  societies 

20 


have  consented  to  consider  the  needs  of  such  families  on  their  merits, 
and  have  made  adequate  relief  plans  for  a  considerable  number  of  those 
referred,  since  their  greater  flexibility  of  plan  permitted  more  generous 
relief  to  be  given  in  such  cases. 

Such  a  division  of  labor  was  not  originally  intended  when  the  pen- 
sion law  was  passed,  but  the  administration  of  the  law  in  Illinois  has 
convinced  its  friends  that  some  maximum  was  needed.  A  more  flexible 
plan  seemed  to  open  the  doors  wide  for  undue  pressure  upon  the  adminis- 
trators of  the  fund.  Until  December  I,  1912,  this  maximum  was  $10 
per  month  per  child,  but  after  that  date  the  judge  was  willing  to  con- 
sider recommendations  for  $15  per  month  for  girls  and  $10  per  month 
for  boys  as  before.  This  change  was  not  an  index  of  any  greater  need, 
but  was  due  to  the  fact  that  $15  a  month  is  the  amount  paid  from 
the  public  treasury  to  institutions  for  dependent  girls,  while  $10  a  month 
is  paid  for  dependent  boys. 

When  it  was  found  necessary  that  a  maximum  be  established,  it 
also  became  necessary,  in  the  case  of  families  where  there  are  few  other 
resources  or  where  there  are  but  two  or  three  children,  to  have  some 
supplementary  aid.  Whether  the  public  pension  in  such  cases  should 
be  supplemented  from  private  sources  or  whether  the  aid  should  all 
come  from  one  source,  became  thereupon  an  important  question.  In  this 
matter  the  various  relief  agencies  came  to  a  substantial  agreement  to  the 
effect  that  the  pension  should  preferably  come  from  one  source,  whether 
public  or  private.  Out  of  this  situation  grew  the  court's  arrange- 
ment with  private  societies. 

The  purposes  of  the  pension  doubtless  included  the  demand  that 
the  mother  should  remain  a  reasonable  period  of  time  with  her  children. 
It  was  believed  that  because  of  the  mother's  going  out  to  work  either 
every  day  or  most  of  the  days  of  the  week,  the  children  did  not  have 
that  oversight  and  care,  training  and  discipline,  which  would  result  in 
good  family  life  and  in  well-trained  children.  We  find  that  87  of  the 
100  mothers  were  with  their  children  a  reasonable  period  of  time  under 
the  pension  system;  that  as  the  result  either  of  the  inadequacy  of  the 
pension  or  of  the  failure  to  insist  on  the  mother's  remaining  at  home 
when  the  resources  were  ample,  13  were  not  with  their  children  as  much 
as  they  should  be. 

While  the  case  committee  carefully  passes  on  all  cases  that  come 
up  for  pension,  the  inadequate  investigation  evidently  has  led  to  the 
pensioning  of  families  in  conditions  that  would  not  be  approved  if  all 
the  facts  were  known  to  them  or  to  the  court.  In  32  of  the  100  the 
conditions  seemed  to  be  such  that  they  needed  a  rehearing  and  a  remedy 
by  the  court  if  the  pension  was  to  be  continued.  In  55  conditions  were 
apparently  satisfactory;  4  cases  are  doubtful,  while  in  9  others  the 
remedies  are  doubtless  in  the  hands  of  probation  officers  who  could  apply 
them  if  they  were  of  the  right  sort  and  if  time  were  given  them  for  a 
careful  study  of  the  situation. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  should  not  be  supposed  from  this  test  that 


21 


all  of  the  32  families  mentioned  as  having  conditions  that  need  remedy- 
ing are  such  that  the  family  should  not  be  kept  together.  In  fact,  in  only 
10  families  are  the  standards  clearly  such  that  the  home  should  be 
broken  up,  while  in  9  the  decision  is  doubtful,  leaving  81  with  standards 
that,  while  they  might  require  some  remedy,  are  on  the  whole  good. 
This  speaks  well  for  the  careful  work  of  the  court  and  of  the  case 
committee  in  sifting  out  those  that  should  not  be  pensioned. 

DECREASE  OF  INTEREST  AND  OF  RESOURCES  OTHER  THAN  PEN- 
SION.— The  effect  of  the  pension  upon  the  generosity  of  relatives,  and 
upon  the  development  of  private  aid  through  churches,  employers,  friends 
or  societies  is  a  thing  which  will  be  keenly  watched  by  all  who  are  in- 
terested in  the  care  of  needy  families.  It  is  a  subject  of  large  concern 
to  know  whether,  through  such  a  large  relief  fund  as  a  widows'  pension 
fund,  churches,  relatives,  employers  or  private  societies  will  become  less 
interested  or  cease  their  interest  altogether  at  the  point  where  the  pen- 
sion begins.  On  this  subject  51  of  the  cases  examined  show  either  that 
less  interest  began  to  be  felt  as  a  result  of  a  pension  plan  or  that  these 
agencies  ceased  their  interest  altogether.  In  19  instances  there  seems 
to  have  been  no  effect,  but  in  some  of  these  no  other  agencies  or  individ- 
uals were  at  any  time  interested.  In  30  instances  it  was  impossible  to 
measure  just  what  effect  the  pension  had  had.  In  34  instances  it  was 
believed  that  the  application  for  the  pension  was  due  to  the  existence 
of  the  pension  itself,  while  64  applications  did  not  seem  to  have  originated 
in  that  way,  and  2  were  doubtful. 

Under  these  circumstances  one  would  expect  that  there  would  be 
evidence  of  undue  dependence  in  the  families.  We  find,  however,  that 
the  number  showing  this  attitude  is  not  as  large  as  the  number  of  ap- 
plications due  to  the  existence  of  a  pension,  for  74  showed  no  evidence 
of  such  dependence.  In  26  families,  however,  the  fact  that  this  sum 
was  granted  from  public  funds  by  the  court  and  called  a  widow's  pen- 
sion either  had  not  prevented  the  development  of  a  pauper  spirit  or  had 
not  removed  it  in  instances  in  which  it  had  previously  existed.  It  is 
evident  that  pensions  have  the  same  effect  as  relief. 

CONCLUSIONS  DRAWN  FROM  THE  ONE  HUNDRED  CASES. — A  few 
general  conclusions  from  the  study  of  the  100  Chicago  pension  cases 
may  be  of  value. 

The  administrators  of  pension  funds  in  Chicago,  as  well  as  those 
in  the  other  cities  visited,  find  that  in  common  with  administrators  of 
other  relief  funds  they  are  dealing  with  at  least  two  types :  First,  families 
who  because  of  their  receiving  generous  aid  rapidly  deteriorate,  become 
less  energetic,  less  self-reliant  and  less  moral  than  before  such  aid  was 
given;  second,  families  who  because  of  more  generous  aid  feel  that 
economic  security  which  becomes  for  them  the  basis  of  family  rehabilita- 
tion. Most  of  the  families  visited  are  now  better  off  financially  than 
before  the  pension  was  granted,  and  are  also  better  off  than  during  the 

22 


period  preceding  the  death  or  last  illness  of  the  chief  breadwinner,  or 
whatever  other  cause  led  to  economic  breakdown.  In  some  instances  the 
family  has  never  been  as  prosperous  as  it  is  now. 

It  was  interesting  to  find  that  in  a  large  majority  of  the  families 
visited  there  was  no  evidence  of  wanton  recklessness,  extravagance  or 
foolishness  in  the  expenditures.  There  are  many  in  the  total  number 
who  have  a  large  measure  of  family  life  and  whose  care  of  the  children 
is  most  excellent,  but  a  few  of  the  mothers  were  clearly  intemperate 
women,  and  there  was  a  tendency  to  keep  family  groups  together  that 
had  better  be  broken  up.  In  one  family,  for  instance,  the  mother  was 
making  capital  of  her  crippled  child  and  was  interfering  with  its  proper 
care.  In  another  a  patient  in  the  highly  contagious  stage  of  tubercu- 
losis was  being  kept  at  home  under  conditions  detrimental  to  the  two 
children.  In  another  the  family  was  syphilitic.  In  still  others  the 
moral  tone  was  low  and  the  children  unlikely  to  prosper,  no  matter  how 
adequately  relieved. 

There  are  various  indications  of  a  lack — a  necessary  lack — of  flexi- 
bility on  the  part  of  pension  funds.  None  is  more  unfortunate  than 
the  requirement  made  in  Chicago  that  if  there  is  even  a  small  sum  left 
in  the  bank  or  any  equity  in  a  piece  of  property,  however  small,  it  must 
first  be  spent  before  a  pension  can  be  considered.  The  woman  who 
has  a  small  property,  however  much  encumbered,  or  who  has  a  bit  of 
insurance  left,  is  practically  told,  "  Go  spend  what  you  have  and  then 
come  back."  This  certainly  leads  to  extravagance  and  dishonesty,  and 
prevents  any  development  of  thrift. 

In  a  number  of  the  families  visited  the  improvement  that  was  evi- 
denced came  through  a  larger  family  income  rather  than  through  good 
administration  and  friendly  oversight,  and  in  a  number  of  other  fam- 
ilies, where  there  had  not  been  much  improvement,  it  seemed  equally 
clear  that  it  was  mainly  because  of  unwise  and  ignorant  management. 
A  county  that  assumes  as  important  a  task  as  the  pensioning  of  1,700 
children  is  guilty  of  flagrant  neglect  when  it  gives  them  over  into  the 
hands  of  a  corps  of  visitors  who  are  largely  unfit  for  such  serious  respon- 
sibilities. 

Such  intelligence  as  is  being  shown  in  the  administration  of  the 
Illinois  law  in  refusing  to  consider  the  pensioning  of  families  in  which 
the  father  has  recently  deserted,  in  which  there  is  but  one  child,  or  in 
which  the  children  would  for  various  reasons  be  injured  rather  than 
benefited  by  remaining  with  the  mother,  is  due  to  the  careful  considera- 
tion given  each  case  by  the  case  committee,  and  to  the  staunch  way  in 
which  the  judge  has  supported  their  work.  The  law  itself  requires  no 
such  safeguards.  The  committee  is  there  only  at  the  request  of  the 
court,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  a  community  can  for  any  length  of 
time  withstand  the  application  of  a  much  broader  interpretation  to  a 
law  so  loosely  drawn,  a  law  which  does  not  even  limit  its  benefits  to 
mothers,  but  permits  the  pensioning  of  both  parents. 


PLANS   IN   OTHER  STATES 

IN  contrast  to  the  apparently  independent  origin  of  the  four  pension 
systems  described  in  the  foregoing  pages,  the  Colorado  law  (p.  33) 
and  the  ten  or  more  legislative  proposals  now  (January,  1913)  being 
discussed  in  as  many  states  are  apparently  suggested  by  the  experiments  of 
one  or  more  of  this  original  group.    In  two  of  the  original  four  states, 
California  and  Wisconsin,  where  the  system,  limited  to  a  single  city, 
was  not  based  on  special  pension  legislation,  efforts  are  being  made  to 
extend  it  and  give  it  the  backing  of  special  laws. 

Among  the  states  in  which  legislation  of  this  sort  is  now  being 
considered  are  Massachusetts,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
Ohio,  Indiana,  Iowa,  Nebraska,  Minnesota  and  Washington.  In  Ohio 
a  commission  consisting  of  two  members  appointed  by  the  Governor 
"  to  codify  and  revise  the  laws  of  the  state  relative  to  children,"  after 
considering  the  subject  of  mothers'  pensions,  reported  that  while  its 
two  members  were  "  not  unanimously  agreed  as  to  the  desirability  of 
any  enactment  of  this  kind,  it  is  agreed  that  should  any  be  passed,  it 
should  be  in  the  form"  which  it  suggests  (see  p.  35).  Massachusetts 
has  investigated  the  proposal  through  a  special  commission,  which  will 
probably  suggest  some  sort  of  pension  legislation.  In  addition,  or  pos- 
sibly as  a  substitute,  proposals  are  being  made  in  that  state  for  legislation 
calling  for  a  policy  of  adequate  relief  on  the  part  of  the  various  local 
public  relief  officials,  and  extending  the  authority  of  the  State  Board  of 
Charity  to  the  supervision  of  relief  given  individual  families  by  such 
local  officials.  In  New  York  City  a  special  committee  made  a  report 
on  the  subject  last  spring  to  the  city  Conference  of  Charities  and  Cor- 
rection. All  but  one  of  the  members  of  this  committee  subscribed  to  the 
recommendation  that  public  relief  for  widows  be  established  in  New 
York  City,  in  accordance  with  a  plan  outlined  in  the  report. 

There  is  much  variation  in  the  scope  of  the  various  proposals.  In 
all  there  must  be  children  living  with  their  mother,  and,  in  the  judgment 
of  the  authorities,  there  must  be  need.  Usually  there  must  be  but  one 
child,  but  the  New  York  proposal  is  for  two  or  more  children.  In  some 
states  the  woman  qualifies  if  this  one  child  is  under  sixteen  years  of  age, 
but  by  the  more  rigid  rule  of  the  Ohio  bill  the  child  must  be  under  four- 
teen years  of  age,  and  the  mother  is  not  allowed  to  work  away  from  her 
home  more  than  one  day  a  week.  Iowa  and  New  York  would  limit 
their  aid  to  widows.  The  Ohio  bill  includes  also  women  whose  hus- 
bands are  in  prison,  are  insane,  or  are  "  permanently  disabled  from 
work."  It  follows  Illinois  in  allowing  the  Juvenile  Court  to  grant  the 
pensions,  but  Iowa  would  leave  the  administration  to  its  Board  of  Con- 
trol of  State  Institutions,  while  for  New  York  City  a  new  city  depart- 
ment would  be  created,  the  "  Department  of  Home  Assistance."  A 
maximum  allowance  of  $10  per  month  for  each  child  under  the  specified 
age  is  fixed  by  the  Iowa  proposal.  Ohio,  however,  would  give  $15  per 
month  for  the  first  child  and  $7  per  month  for  each  of  the  others.  Thus 


the  maximum  per  month  for  a  widow  with  four  children  under  the 
specified  ages  would  be  $40  in  Iowa  and  $36  in  Ohio.  The  New  York 
proposal  fixes  no  limit.  The  pension  there  is  to  be  given  by  private 
societies,  the  new  city  department  giving  to  each  family  double  the 
amount  that  the  private  society  has  already  given,  provided  the  private 
society's  application  for  the  family  is  approved.  By  the  Iowa  proposal 
state  funds  pay  only  half  of  the  pension  money  needed  and  county  funds 
half.  In  Ohio  the  funds  are  to  be  provided  by  a  special  county  tax, 
not  to  exceed  one-tenth  of  a  mill  on  the  dollar  valuation  of  taxable 
property.  City  appropriations  are  to  supply  the  funds  according  to  the 
New  York  plan.  Investigation  by  the  private  societies,  before  a  pen- 
sion is  approved,  is  required  by  the  New  York  plan.  In  Iowa  the  inves- 
tigation is  to  be  within  sixty  days,  by  an  agent  of  the  administering 
board.  By  the  Ohio  plan,  however,  "  a  careful  preliminary  examina- 
tion of  the  home  of  such  mother  must  first  have  been  made  by  the  pro- 
bation officer,  an  associated  charities  organization,  humane  society,  or 
such  other  competent  person  or  agency  as  the  court  may  direct,  and  a 
written  report  of  such  examination  filed."  Finally,  the  Ohio  proposal 
contains  a  provision  intended  to  protect  the  funds  from  exploitation. 
It  is  provided  that  on  the  petition  of  any  citizen  the  court  may  terminate 
or  modify  the  order  granting  any  pension. 


GENERAL  CONCLUSIONS 

THE  present  resources  and  methods  of  procedure  in  caring  for 
women  with  dependent  children  are  so  diverse  in  divers  com- 
munities that  it  is  impossible  to  legislate  wisely  in  any  one  state 
by  merely  copying  laws  that  are  on  the  statute  books  of  another.  In 
some  cities  and  states  subsidies  are  granted  to  private  institutions  for 
the  support  of  children  at  public  expense,  while  in  others  subsidies  are 
forbidden.  In  California,  for  instance,  the  support  of  dependent  chil- 
dren in  private  institutions  at  public  expense  has  been  in  existence  for 
many  years  and  no  plan  of  outdoor  relief  obtains  in  San  Francisco. 
These  circumstances  are  not  typical,  however,  of  many  American  com- 
munities. In  Kansas  City,  with  no  public  outdoor  relief  and  only  small 
sums  being  paid  to  private  children's  societies  from  public  funds,  and 
with  private  relief  societies  inadequately  equipped  to  meet  the  needs, 
the  situation  was  one  to  encourage  the  development  of  a  new  form  of 
public  aid. 

But  not  only  are  states  diverse,  but  communities  in  the  same  state 
have  greatly  differing  resources  and  it  is  impossible  to  enact  state-wide 
legislation  that  will  meet  the  need  successfully  without  considering  the 
circumstances  of  the  local  community.  This  diversity  has  been  shown 
to  some  extent  in  this  study.  It  is,  for  instance,  true  that  while  Boston, 
through  its  public  and  private  charitable  agencies,  is  largely  preventing 
the  breaking  up  of  families  for  reasons  of  poverty  alone,  in  other  cities 

25 


of  Massachusetts  the  care  of  dependent  children  and  their  mothers  is  not 
as  adequately  provided  for  as  in  Boston  and  its  immediate  vicinity. 

2.  The  idea  of  adequate  relief  is  a  new  one  for  most  charitable 
agencies.    Whether  public  or  private,  they  are  still  quite  generally  in  the 
habit  of  calculating  the  amount  that  can  be  given  any  one  family  by 
dividing  the  probable   total   number  of   families  under  care   into   the 
probable  total  amount  available  for  relief.     Great  strides,  however,  have 
been  made  in  private  agencies,  particularly  in  their  willingness  to  recog- 
nize that  each  agency  should  aid  adequately  or  feel  responsible  for  the 
adequate  aid  of  those  that  it  aids  at  all,  and  responsible,  too,  for  develop- 
ing, within  the  families  themselves,  within  their  immediate  circles,  or 
from  natural  sources,  such  aid  as  will  wholly  and  best  meet  the  need. 
Public  agencies  have  only  partially  as  yet  felt  this  influence,  and  they 
recognize  only  imperfectly  or  not  at  all  the  many  forms  of  service  which 
can  be  rendered  those  in   distress  aside   from  the  granting  of  money. 
Progress  has,  however,  been  made  even  among  them. 

3.  The  creation  of  new  administrative  machinery  without   doing 
anything  with  the  old  is  a  common  enough  error,  which  leads  often  to 
conflicting  policies  and  authorities.     The  duplicate  investigations  for  the 
granting  of  Chicago  pensions  are  an  illustration  of  this.     In  most  of 
the  cities  and  towns  of  this  land  the  public  relief  officers,  under  various 
designations,  are  the  last  resort  for  aiding  women  with  dependent  chil- 
dren.    By  creating  new  bodies  to  deal  with  the  pensioning  of  women 
with  dependent  children,  the  experience  of  these  officers  is  disregarded, 
and  the  problem  of  a  new  form  of  relief  is  turned  over  to  a  new  group, 
a  group  more  likely  to  work  in  antagonism  to  than  in  co-operation  with 
the  established  relief  authorities. 

4.  With  the  exception  of  St.  Louis,  the  administration  of  all  the 
plans  for  pensions  that  have  been  considered  is  vested  in  the  juvenile 
court.     The  work   of  the  juvenile   court  is   so   important   that   it   is 
extremely  hazardous  to  its  proper  development  to  add  to  its  judicial 
functions  the  function  of  pensioning  and  the  supervision  of  pensioners. 
The  judges  of  the  juvenile  courts  represented  in  this  study  are  men  of 
integrity  and  intelligence,  and  their  very  interest  in  the  social  problems 
of  their  community,  which  they  felt  were  not  being  successfully  met  by 
existing  agencies,   has  led  them   either  to   encourage  widows'   pension 
plans  or  to  originate  them.     Most  of  them  do  not  themselves  feel  that 
the  juvenile  court  is  adapted  to  this  task. 

Says  Judge  Baker  of  the  Boston  Juvenile  Court:  "  I  want  to  warn 
the  communities  that  are  going  to  try  any  experiments  with  widows' 
pensions  or  relief  to  parents  not  to  administer  them  through  the  juvenile 
courts."  To  which  Judge  Pinckney  of  the  Chicago  Juvenile  Court  adds: 
"  When  Judge  Baker  says  that  the  administration  of  this  relief  ought 
not  to  be  left  to  the  Juvenile  Court  of  Chicago,  or  to  any  juvenile  court, 
I  say,  Amen !  Amen !  " 

26 


A  study  of  the  pension  administration  of  the  various  juvenile  courts 
does  not  give  one  that  confidence  in  its  success  which  would  justify  its 
further  extension.  If  widows'  pensions  are  needed  in  our  various  states, 
some  other  agency  than  the  juvenile  court  should  be  charged  with  their 
administration. 

5.  Those  who  expected  that  pensions  to  mothers  with  dependent 
children  would  reduce  the  number  of  commitments  to  institutions  mate- 
rially are  doomed  to  disappointment,  judging  from  the  experience  of  the 
cities  where  pensions  are  in  vogue.    The  number  of  children  committed 
because  of  poverty  alone  is  much  smaller  than  is  generally  supposed,  and 
only  a  careful  case-by-case  examination  of  the  reasons  leading  to  the 
commitments  would  bring  out  the  facts.     Most  of  the  dependent  chil- 
dren committed  in  Chicago  were  neglected  by  their  parents  and  had 
no  homes  to  which  they  could  safely  be  returned. 

6.  The  passage  of  new  laws  for  the  pensioning  of  widows  with 
dependent  children  who  are  in  need  will  inevitably  create  a  new  class 
of  dependents  in  our  communities.     In  34  of  the  IOO  cases  examined 
in  Chicago,  the  applications  seem  to  be  due  to  the  fact  of  the  existence 
of  a  pension  plan.     In  communities  where  the  forms  of  co-operation 
between  the  juvenile  court  and  the  private  relief  agencies  are  not  as 
carefully  worked  out  as  they  are  in  Chicago,  this  number  will  be  mate- 
rially increased.     Any  legislation  that  seeks  to  aid  new  groups  of  de- 
pendents without  at  the  same  time  guarding  against  the  creation  of  such 
dependents  is  dangerous. 

7.  The  enthusiasm  in  favor  of  widows'  pensions  must  not  be  un- 
derestimated and  undervalued.     It  is  born  of  a  desire  to  have  justice 
done  to  the  mother  who  is  attempting  to  keep  her  brood  of  children 
together  under  trying  circumstances.     A  number  of  the  states  of  the 
Union  have,  however,  begun  to  meet  this  question  in  a  more  logical 
way,  and  are  pointing  the  way  to  a  better  solution.     They  have  discov- 
ered the  causes  of  some  of  the  deaths  which  have  brought  about  widow- 
hood, and  have  passed  laws  for  their  prevention.     They  have  discovered 
that  deaths  from  accident  and  from  industrial  and  other  preventable 
diseases  constitute  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  total  number.1     They 
have  better  protected  the  living  so  that  there  might  be  fewer  widows 
and  dependent  children.     They  have  passed  workmen's  compensation 
and  employers'  liability  laws,  so  that  the  industry  and  the  consuming 
public  might  carry  the  expense  that  comes  as  a  result  of  the  risk  in- 
volved in  the  production  of  goods.     They  have  passed  insurance  legisla- 
tion which  has  decreased  premiums  and  encouraged  thrift. 

When,  in  addition  to  measures  that  look  toward  the  prevention 

1  In  a  study  made  by  the  Charity  Organization  Department  of  the  Rus- 
sell Sage  Foundation  now  almost  completed,  29  per  cent,  of  the  husbands  of  the 
799  widows  studied  died  of  tuberculosis,  and  9  per  cent,  were  killed  by  indus- 
trial accidents. 

27 


of  accident,  disease  and  death,  the  community  has  also  recognized  the 
importance  of  a  strict  enforcement  of  legal  responsibilities,  still  less  will 
remain  to  be  done  through  the  pensioning  of  a  new  dependent  class. 
There  are  few  states  that  have  laws  to  deal  at  all  adequately  with 
desertion,  bastardy,  and  support  by  relatives  in  line  of  descent,  and  where 
such  laws  are  reasonably  adequate  their  rigid  and  intelligent  enforce- 
ment is  rare.  The  enthusiast  in  favor  of  widows'  pensions  is  indifferent 
to  the  rigid  enforcement  of  responsibilities.  He  is  likely  to  hold  lightly 
the  ties  of  kinship  and  of  those  natural  community  relations  which  find 
their  most  beautiful  expression  in  the  service  which  one  person  may 
render  to  another  in  a  time  of  distress.  He  is  likely  to  turn  easily  toward 
the  payment  of  a  lump  sum  from  the  public  treasury  as  a  substitute  for 
family  and  neighborhood  responsibility,  and  as  a  remedy  for  all  social 
ills. 

The  existing  public  and  private  agencies  for  home  assistance  should 
be  adapted,  standardized  and  used  to  meet  the  present  needs  as  far  as 
their  purposes  and  their  methods  make  this  practicable.  When,  in  ad- 
dition to  these,  the  preventive  measures  that  have  been  mentioned  have 
been  instituted,  a  large  part  of  the  dependence  in  most  of  our  cities 
and  states  will  have  been  met.  If,  however,  social  and  economic  condi- 
tions, upon  careful  inquiry,  are  found  to  be  such  that  large  groups  of 
families  are  left  in  poverty  or  destitution,  it  were  better  that  a  plan  of 
social  insurance  be  adopted  than  that  these  families  should,  group  by 
group,  be  added  as  dependents  to  our  communities.  Such  plans  of 
insurance  against  widowhood,  unemployment,  invalidism  or  accident  are 
now  in  vogue  in  England,  Germany  and  other  European  countries.  The 
state  provides  the  whole  support  or  asks  the  breadwinner  to  contribute 
from  his  earnings  a  portion  of  what  will  be  paid  him  as  a  pension  when 
some  unavoidable  misfortune  has  come  upon  him. 


APPENDIX 

EXISTING    LAWS,    ORDINANCES,    ETC. 
I 

SECTION  22  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  STATE  OF  CALIFORNIA  AUTHORIZING 
PAYMENTS  FROM  THE  STATE  TREASURY  FOR  THE  SUPPORT  OF  MINOR  OR- 
PHANS OR  HALF-ORPHANS,  OR  ABANDONED  CHILDREN,  IN  PRIVATE  CARE. 

No  money  shall  be  drawn  from  the  treasury  but  in  consequence  of  ap- 
propriations made  by  law,  and  upon  warrants  duly  drawn  thereon  by  the 
comptroller;  and  no  money  shall  ever  be  appropriated  or  drawn  from  the 
State  Treasury  for  the  use  or  benefit  of  any  corporation,  association,  asy- 
lum, hospital,  or  any  other  institution  not  under  the  exclusive  management 
and  control  of  the  State  as  a  State  institution,  nor  shall  any  grant  or  dona- 
tion of  property  ever  be  made  thereto  by  the  State;  provided,  that  notwith- 
standing anything  contained  in  this  or  any  other  section  of  this  Constitution, 
the  Legislature  shall  have  the  power  to  grant  aid  to  institutions  conducted 
for  the  support  and  maintenance  of  minor  orphans  or  half-orphans,  or  aban- 
doned children,  or  aged  persons  in  indigent  circumstances — such  aid  to  be 
granted  by  a  uniform  rule,  and  proportioned  to  the  number  of  inmates  of 
such  respective  institutions;  provided  further,  that  the  State  shall  have  at 
any  time  the  right  to  inquire  into  the  management  of  such  institution;  pro- 
vided further,  that  whenever  any  county,  or  city  and  county,  or  city,  or 
town,  shall  provide  for  the  support  of  minor  orphans,  or  half-orphans,  or 
abandoned  children,  or  aged  persons  in  indigent  circumstances,  such  county, 
city  and  county,  city  or  town  shall  be  entitled  to  receive  the  same  pro  rata 
appropriations  as  may  be  granted  to  such  institutions  under  church  or  other 
control.  An  accurate  statement  of  the  receipts  and  expenditure  of  public  mon- 
eys shall  be  attached  to  and  published  with  the  laws  of  every  regular  ses- 
sion of  the  Legislature. 

II 

SECTION  21  OF  THE  CALIFORNIA  JUVENILE  COURT  LAW  AS  AMENDED  AND  IN  FORCE 
APRIL  5,  1911. 

Any  order  providing  for  the  custody  of  a  dependent  or  delinquent  person 
may  provide  that  the  expense  of  maintaining  such  person  shall  be  paid  by 
the  parent  or  parents  or  guardian  of  such  person,  and  in  such  case  shall  state 
the  amount  to  be  so  paid,  and  shall  determine  whether  or  not  the  parent  or 
parents  or  guardian  shall  exercise  any  control  of  said  person,  and  define 
the  extent  thereof.  Any  disobedience  of  such  order  or  interference  with  the 
custody  of  the  person  as  therein  determined  shall  constitute  a  contempt  of 
court. 

If  it  be  found,  however,  that  the  parent  or  parents  or  guardian  of  a 
dependent  or  delinquent  person  is  unable  to  pay  the  whole  expense  of  main- 
taining such  person,  the  court  may,  in  the  order  providing  for  the  custody  of 
such  person,  direct  such  additional  amount  as  may  be  necessary  to  support 
such  person  to  be  paid  from  the  county  treasury  of  the  county  for  the  sup- 
port of  such  person,  the  amount  so  ordered  to  be  paid  from  the  treasury  of 
said  county  not  to  exceed,  in  case  of  any  one  person,  the  sum  of  eleven 
dollars  per  month;  provided  further,  that  no  order  for  the  payment  of  all 
or  part  of  the  expense  of  support  and  maintenance  of  a  dependent  or  de- 

29 


linquent  person  from  the  county  treasury  shall  be  effective  for  more  than  six 
months,  unless  a  new  order  is  secured  at  the  expiration  of  that  period. 

The  court  may  thereafter  set  aside,  change  or  modify  any  order  herein 
provided  for. 

Ill 

KANSAS  CITY  MOTHERS'  ALLOWANCE  LAW  PASSED  BY  THE  46™  GENERAL  ASSEM- 
BLY, 1911. 

An  act  to  provide  for  the  partial  support  of  poor  women  whose  husbands 
are  dead  or  convicts  when  such  women  are  mothers  of  children  under  the 
age  of  fourteen  (14)  years  and  reside  in  counties  now  or  hereafter  having 
not  less  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  (250,000)  inhabitants  and  not 
more  than  five  hundred  thousand  (500,000)  inhabitants,  and  now  or  here- 
after having  or  holding  a  juvenile  court.  With  an  emergency  clause. 
Be  it  enacted  by  the  General  Assembly  of  the  State  of  Missouri,  as  follows: 

Section  I.  In  every  county  now  containing  or  that  may  hereafter  contain 
two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  (250,000)  inhabitants  and  less  than  five  hun- 
dred thousand  (500,000)  inhabitants  and  in  which  a  juvenile  court  is  now  being 
held  or  may  hereafter  be  held,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  county  court  to 
provide  out  of  the  moneys  in  the  county  treasury  not  already  appropriated 
an  amount  sufficient  to  meet  the  purposes  of  this  law,  but  not  exceeding  in 
any  one  year  the  sum  of  twelve  thousand  dollars  ($12,000)  for  the  partial 
support  of  women  whose  husbands  are  dead,  or  whose  husbands  are  pris- 
oners, when  such  women  are  poor,  and  are  the  mothers  of  children  under 
the  age  of  fourteen  years  and  such  mothers  and  children  reside  in  such 
counties. 

Section  2.  The  allowance  to  each  of  such  women  shall  not  exceed  ten 
dollars  ($10)  a  month  when  she  has  but  one  child  under  the  age  of  four- 
teen (14)  years,  and  if  she  has  more  than  one  child  under  the  age  of  fourteen 
years,  it  shall  not  exceed  the  sum  of  ten  dollars  ($10)  a  month  for  the  first 
child  and  five  dollars  ($5)  a  month  for  each  of  the  other  children  under 
the  age  of  fourteen  years. 

Section  3.  Such  allowance  shall  be  made  by  the  juvenile  court  and  only 
upon  the  following  conditions:  (i)  the  child  or  children  for  whose  benefit  the 
allowance  is  made  must  be  living  with  the  mother  of  such  child  or  children; 
(2)  the  allowance  shall  be  made  only  when  in  the  absence  of  such  allow- 
ance the  mother  would  be  required  to  work  regularly  away  from  her  home 
and  children,  and  when  by  means  of  such  allowance  she  will  be  able  to  re- 
main at  home  with  her  children;  (3)  the  mother  must,  in  the  judgment  of 
the  juvenile  court  be  a  proper  person  morally,  physically  and  mentally,  for 
the  bringing  up  of  her  children;  (4)  such  allowance  shall  in  the  judgment 
of  the  court  be  necessary  to  save  the  child  or  children  from  neglect;  (5)  no 
person  shall  receive  the  benefit  of  this  act  who  shall  not  have  been  a  resident 
of  the  county  in  which  such  application  is  made  for  at  least  two  years  next 
before  the  making  of  such  application  for  such  allowance. 

Section  4.  Whenever  any  child  shall  reach  the  age  of  fourteen  years  any 
allowance  made  to  the  mother  of  such  child  for  the  benefit  of  such  child  shall 
cease.  The  juvenile  court  may,  in  its  discretion,  at  any  time  before  such  child 
reaches  the  age  of  fourteen  years,  discontinue  or  modify  the  allowance  to  any 
mother  and  for  any  child. 

Section  5.  Should  the  fund  herein  authorized  be  sufficient  to  permit  an 
allowance  to  only  a  part  of  the  persons  coming  within  the  provisions  of  this 
law,  the  juvenile  court  shall  select  those  cases  in  most  urgent  need  of  such 
allowance. 

Section  6.  The  provisions  of  this  law  shall  not  apply  to  any  woman 
whose  husband  is  not  dead  or  who  is  not  confined  in  the  Missouri  state  peni- 


tentiary  or  other  prison  in  this  state,  and  in  the  latter  case  it  shall  not  apply 
unless  such  prisoner  is  the  lawful  husband  of  the  woman  seeking  such  allow- 
ance. 

Section  7.  Any  person  procuring,  or  attempting  to  procure  any  allow- 
ance for  a  person  not  entitled  thereto  shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  a  misde- 
meanor and  on  conviction  thereof,  shall  be  punished  by  a  fine  of  not  less 
than  one  hundred  dollars  ($100)  nor  more  than  five  hundred  dollars  ($500),  or 
by  imprisonment  in  the  county  jail,  for  a  period  of  not  more  than  one  year, 
or  by  both  fine  and  imprisonment. 

Section  8.  In  each  case  where  an  allowance  is  made  to  any  woman  under 
the  provisions  of  this  act,  a  judgment  entry  to  that  effect  shall  be  entered 
upon  the  records  of  the  juvenile  court  making  such  allowance,  and  it  shall 
be  the  right  of  any  tax-paying  citizen  at  any  time  to  file  a  motion  to  set  aside 
such  judgment;  and  on  such  motion  the  juvenile  court,  or  the  court  to  whom 
such  motion  may  be  taken  on  a  change  of  venue,  shall  hear  evidence,  either 
with  or  without  a  jury,  as  either  side  may  demand,  and  may  make  a  new 
order  granting  or  refusing  such  allowance,  and  from  such  order  so  made  an 
appeal  shall  lie  as  in  ordinary  civil  cases.  If  the  judgment  making  such 
allowance  is  not  appealed  from  or  is  affirmed  on  appeal,  the  person  filing 
such  motion  shall  pay  all  of  the  costs  of  such  motion  and  proceedings  subse- 
quent thereto.  Such  motion  may  be  renewed  from  time  to  time  but  not  oftener 
than  once  in  any  calendar  year. 

Section  p.  All  acts  or  parts  of  acts  in  conflict  with  this  act  are  in  so  far 
as  they  so  conflict  hereby  repealed. 

Section  10.  There  being  no  adequate  provision  of  law  covering  the  sub- 
ject of  partial  support  of  poor  women,  an  emergency  within  the  meaning  of 
the  Constitution  is  hereby  declared  to  exist,  therefore  this  act  shall  take  effect 
and  be  in  force  from  and  after  its  passage  and  approval. 

IV 

RESOLUTION  PASSED  BY  THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES  OF  THE  MILWAUKEE  COUNTY 
HOME  FOR  DEPENDENT  CHILDREN,  MARCH  26,  1912. 

Your  joint  committee  on  treasury  and  taxes  and  penal  and  charitable  insti- 
tutions, to  whom  was  referred  on  February  20,  1912,  the  resolution  of  Su- 
pervisor Heath,  found  on  Page  360  of  the  proceedings  of  that  date,  in  regard 
to  a  fund  to  be  used  for  dependent  children,  beg  leave  to  report  that  they 
have  considered  said  matter  with  the  judges  of  the  juvenile  court  of  Mil- 
waukee County,  and  recommend  the  adoption  of  said  resolution  with  certain 
amendments.  Said  resolution  as  amended  reads  as  follows: 

Whereas,  It  has  been  found  necessary  in  numerous  cases  coming  before 
the  juvenile  court,  in  which  dependent  and  neglected  children  have  been 
placed  in  the  Milwaukee  County  Home  for  Dependent  Children  at  Wauwatosa, 
to  take  children  away  from  impoverished  mothers,  thus  breaking  up  families 
that  should  in  the  majority  of  instances  be  kept  together  and  the  home 
influence  preserved ;  and 

Whereas,  It  has  been  found  that  in  cases  of  this  kind  a  small  addition 
to  the  income  of  the  mother  would  often  be  sufficient  to  enable  her  to  pro- 
vide for  her  children  and  to  thus  escape  the  heartrending  separation  such  as 
frequently  takes  place;  and 

Whereas,  It  is  desirable  that  a  sum  of  money  be  set  aside  as  a  fund  to 
be  used  to  alleviate  or  prevent  the  conditions  above  mentioned,  especially  in 
such  cases  where  the  evidence  taken  in  said  juvenile  court  shows  that  the 
family  is  one  deserving  of  such  assistance,  therefore 

Resolved,  That  the  sum  of  five  thousand  dollars  ($5,000)  be  and  it  is 
hereby  set  aside  and  constituted  a  special  fund  to  be  used  and  drawn  upon 
by  the  trustees  of  the  Milwaukee  County  Home  for  Dependent  Children  in 


such  cases  of  dependent  and  neglected  children  pending  in  the  juvenile  court 
of  Milwaukee  County  where  said  board,  from  the  evidence  there  taken  and 
upon  the  advice  of  the  presiding  judge  of  said  court,  decides  and  determines 
that  it  is  for  the  best  interests  of  the  family  to  give  such  family  financial 
assistance  instead  of  detaining  such  child  or  children  in  said  Milwaukee 
County  Home  for  Dependent  Children ;  and  further 

Resolved,  That  the  five  thousand  dollars  ($5,000)  so  set  aside  be  taken 
from  the  five  thousand  dollars  ($5,000)  previously  transferred  to  the  trustees 
of  the  Milwaukee  County  poor  from  the  improvement  fund  of  the  Home  for 
Dependent  Children,  and  not  accepted  by  said  trustees,  and  that  the  county 
treasurer  is  hereby  empowered  to  transfer  said  sum  of  five  thousand  dollars 
($5,000)  from  the  Milwaukee  County  poor  fund  to  the  special  fund  for  the 
care  of  dependent  and  neglected  children  in  order  to  comply  with  the  fore- 
going resolution ;  and  it  is  further 

Resolved,  That  temporary  aid  be  given  when  the  same  shall  be  suggested 
or  recommended  by  the  presiding  judge  of  said  juvenile  court,  until  such  time 
as  said  board  of  trustees  shall  have  had  an  opportunity  to  make  a  full  and 
complete  investigation  of  such  case,  and  that  a  transcript  of  the  testimony 
taken  in  such  case  be  immediately  forwarded  to  said  board  of  trustees  for 
their  information ;  and  it  is  further 

Resolved,  That  said  board  of  trustees  make  a  report  upon  the  first  day 
of  each  and  every  month,  giving  an  itemized  statement  of  their  expenditures 
from  said  fund. 

FREDERICK  HEATH, 
GEORGE  MOERSCHEL, 
S.   R.   BELL, 
WILLIAM  E.  MCCARTY, 
GEORGE  MENSING, 

Committee. 


ST.  Louis,  Mo.,  LAW  FOR  MOTHERS'  COMPENSATION  AS  PROVIDED  BY  AN  ORDINANCE 
CREATING  THE  BOARD  OF  CHILDREN'S  GUARDIANS  IN  1912. 

Section  8.  Said  Board  of  Children's  Guardians  shall  have  the  power  and 
authority  to  receive  and  take  charge  of  any  child  upon  commitment  to  it  by 
any  court  of  competent  jurisdiction  in  the  City  of  St.  Louis,  and  upon  appli- 
cation of  its  legal  custodian  to  receive  and  take  charge  of  any  dependent 
or  defective  child  for  such  care  and  treatment  as  such  Board  may  determine; 
provided,  however,  that  the  Board  shall  not  take  charge  or  consider  any  ap- 
plication for  the  care  of  a  child  who  has  not  been  a  resident  of  the  city  for 
at  least  one  year  prior  to  the  application,  or,  if  a  child  under  one  year  of 
age,  whose  parents  or  guardian  have  not  been  residents  of  the  city  for  at 
least  one  year  prior  to  the  making  of  the  application,  excepting  foundlings 
and  abandoned  children  whose  parents  or  guardians  are  unknown. 

Section  9.  Said  Board  of  Children's  Guardians  shall  have  the  power  and 
authority  to  place  any  child  in  its  charge  for  temporary  custody  in  the  House  of 
Detention;  to  place  delinquent  and  defective  children  in  any  public  institution 
within  the  State  of  Missouri  for  the  care  of  delinquent  and  defective  chil- 
dren, and  to  place  dependent  children  in  the  St.  Louis  Industrial  School,  but 
only  in  case  no  suitable  family  homes  can  be  found  for  them,  and  only  until 
such  homes  can  be  found.  Said  Board  shall  have  the  power  and  authority  to 
place  any  child  in  its  charge  or  under  its  control  with  any  family  qualified 
and  able  in  the  opinion  of  the  Board  to  provide  for  the  comfort  and  wants 
of  such  child,  and  to  care  for  its  moral  and  physical  welfare,  provided,  that 
no  child  shall  be  placed  with  any  family  when  the  head  thereof  is  of  dif- 
ferent religious  affiliation  from  that  of  the  child's  parents  or  guardian,  if 

32 


such  affiliation  can  be  ascertained;  and  provided  further,  that  no  payment 
shall  be  made  for  the  board  of  any  child  with  such  child's  own  father  or 
mother,  excepting  with  its  own  mother,  when  such  mother  is  widowed,  and 
then  only  after  the  Board,  through  an  investigation  by  its  agents  and  at 
least  one  other  independent  investigation,  has  agreed  that  such  board  should  be 
allowed ;  and  provided  further,  that  the  Board  of  Children's  Guardians  shall 
not  place  for  board  any  child  who  has  arrived  at  the  legal  working  age 
(fourteen)  unless  such  child  is  mentally  or  physically  incapacitated  for  gain- 
ful employment.  The  Board  shall,  so  far  as  practicable,  place  children  within 
the  City  of  St.  Louis,  and  when  not  practicable,  the  children  may  be  placed 
in  the  State,  within  a  radius  of  fifty  miles  of  St.  Louis. 

Section  10.  For  each  child  so  placed  by  said  Board  in  any  public  insti- 
tution within  the  State  of  Missouri,  the  City  of  St.  Louis  shall  pay  whatever 
sum  may  be  fixed  by  statute  or  whatever  sum  may  be  agreed  upon  by  said 
Board  not  in  excess  of  the  sum  fixed  by  statute.  For  the  board  and  main- 
tenance of  every  child  placed  with  a  family  the  city  shall  pay  whatever  sum 
is  agreed  upon  by  said  Board  of  Children's  Guardians,  not  in  excess,  however, 
of  the  sum  of  three  dollars  and  fifty  cents  per  week ;  provided,  however,  that 
with  the  consent  of  the  Comptroller  first  had  and  obtained  as  evidenced  by 
his  certificate  in  each  and  every  case,  the  said  Board  may  authorize  and  the 
city  shall  pay  a  greater  amount,  as  fixed  by  the  Comptroller's  certificate.  In 
addition  to  said  amount  thus  fixed,  the  city,  upon  the  action  of  said  Board, 
may  pay  for  clothing  and  for  medical  treatment  not  exceeding  the  sum  of 
twenty-five  dollars  per  year  per  child;  provided,  however,  that  a  greater  sum 
may  be  authorized  by  said  Board  and  shall  be  paid  by  the  city,  upon  the 
certificate  of  the  Comptroller  having  been  first  had  and  obtained  in  each  and 
every  case.  All  expenditures  authorized  by  the  Board  shall  be  certified  by  the 
Board's  agent  and  chairman. 

Section  //.  Said  Board  shall  render  a  quarterly  report,  on  the  fifteenth 
day  of  February,  May,  August  and  November  of  each  year  to  the  Municipal 
Assembly,  and  a  monthly  report  to  the  Mayor,  showing  the  number  of  children 
in  its  charge  and  under  its  control,  the  manner  in  which  each  child  came  into 
said  Board's  control,  its  age,  sex  and  color,  the  disposition  of  each  case, 
the  number  of  those  finally  discharged  from  the  Board's  control,  the  amount 
of  expenditures  on  account  of  the  work  of  said  Board,  and  any  and  all  infor- 
mation that  the  Board  may  be  able  to  furnish.  The  Board  shall  make  to 
the  Comptroller  such  fiscal  reports  as  he  may  require. 


VI 

COLORADO  MOTHERS'  COMPENSATION  ACT  PASSED  BY  POPULAR  VOTE,  NOVEMBER 

5,  1912. 

An  act  to  amend  an  act  entitled,  An  Act  concerning  Dependent  and  Neglected 
Children,  approved  April  2,  1907. 

Be  it  enacted  by  the  people  of  the  State  of  Colorado. 

Section  /.  That  Section  7  of  an  Act  entitled,  An  Act  Concerning  Depend- 
ent and  Neglected  Children,  approved  April  2,  1907,  be  and  the  same  is  hereby 
amended  so  as  to  read  as  follows: 

Section  7.  Any  dependent  child  committed  to  the  State  Home  for  Depend- 
ent and  Neglected  Children  shall,  as  to  its  care  and  disposition  by  said  home, 
be  subject  to  any  special  order  of  the  court  making  such  commitment,  pro- 
vided such  order  be  made  at  the  time  of  such  commitment.  If  the  parent  or 
parents  of  such  dependent  or  neglected  child  are  poor  and  unable  to  properly 
care  for  such  child,  but  otherwise  are  proper  guardians,  and  it  is  for  the 
welfare  of  such  child  to  remain  at  home,  the  court  may  enter  an  order  finding 

33 


such  facts  and  fixing  the  amount  of  money  necessary  to  enable  the  parent  or 
parents  to  properly  care  for  such  child,  and  thereupon  it  shall  be  the  duty 
of  the  Board  of  County  Commissioners,  and  in  those  cities  and  counties  operat- 
ing under  Article  XX  of  the  Constitution  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  depart- 
ment and  authority  performing  that  part  of  the  functions  of  a  board  of 
county  commissioners,  or  vested  with  power  for  the  relief  of  the  poor,  to  pay 
such  parent  or  parents,  or,  if  it  seems  for  the  best  interest  of  the  child,  to 
some  other  person  designated  by  the  court  for  that  purpose,  at  such  times 
as  said  order  may  designate,  the  amount  so  specified,  or  when  so  ordered  by 
the  court,  its  equivalent  in  supplies  and  assistance,  for  the  care  of  such 
dependent  or  neglected  child  until  the  further  order  of  the  court.  The  juvenile 
court  in  counties  of  over  100,000  population,  and  the  county  court  in  all  other 
counties,  shall  appoint  proper  persons  for  the  purpose  of  investigation,  visita- 
tion, the  keeping  of  records  and  the  making  of  reports  in  cases  requiring  relief 
under  this  act.  The  details  as  to  the  number  of  such  investigators,  their 
rights,  duties  and  powers  in  addition  to  that  of  investigators  of  such  cases, 
their  compensation,  the  limitations  thereon  and  the  authority  of  the  county 
or  city  and  county  required  to  provide  for  such  compensation  shall  be  as 
provided  by  law  for  the  employment  of  probation  officers  in  such  juvenile  and 
county  courts.  It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  clerk  of  such  juvenile  or  county 
courts,  on  or  before  December  i,  1912,  and  on  or  before  the  first  day  of  July 
of  each  year  thereafter,  to  submit  to  such  county  board  or  other  proper  au- 
thority a  report  of  all  cases  receiving  relief  under  this  act,  and  an  estimate  of 
the  sum  necessary  to  be  placed  at  its  disposal  for  complying  with  the  provi- 
sions of  this  act.  A  copy  of  such  report  shall  be  filed  with  the  State  Board  of 
Charities  and  Corrections.  If  the  state  home  is  unable  to  provide  any  child 
with  a  family  home  through  voluntary  adoption  within  six  months  from  the 
time  of  its  commitment,  then  as  far  as  possible  and  if  for  the  best  interest 
of  the  child  it  shall  be  its  duty  to  provide  for  the  boarding  out  of  said  child 
in  a  suitable  family  home  until  such  time  as  it  may  be  adopted  or  shall  have 
reached  the  age  of  sixteen  years.  Petitions  and  commitments  under  this  act 
shall  state  the  religious  belief  of  parents,  if  known,  and  if  not  known  the 
court  shall  endeavor  to  ascertain  such  fact,  and  family  homes  to  which  chil- 
dren are  committed  shall,  as  far  as  practicable,  conform  to  such  religious  be- 
lief. On  or  before  December  i,  1912,  and  on  each  July  ist  next  thereafter, 
before  the  convening  of  the  succeeding  general  assembly,  it  shall  be  the  duty 
of  the  superintendent  of  said  home  to  submit  to  the  governor  and  the  state 
board  of  charities  and  corrections  a  detailed  report  of  such  boarding  out  of 
said  children  in  family  homes  and  an  estimate  as  near  as  may  be  of  the 
annual  sum  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  said  boarding  out  system  and 
visitation  officers  employed  by  said  State  Home  in  connection  therewith.  The 
governor  shall  transmit  such  estimate  to  such  succeeding  general  assembly, 
which  is  hereby  directed  by  the  people  of  this  state  to  appropriate  from  the 
state  treasury  a  sum  sufficient  for  the  boarding  out  and  visitation  of  said 
children,  and  otherwise  carrying  into  effect  the  provisions  of  this  act.  Any 
of  said  courts  enforcing  the  provisions  hereof  shall  have  the  right  to  proceed 
as  for  contempt  of  court  against  officials  who  wilfully  refuse  to  comply  with 
its  orders  directing  their  compliance  with  the  provisions  hereof;  provided  the 
sums  paid  out  under  this  act  shall  not  exceed  in  any  year  the  amount  appro- 
priated for  such  purpose  by  the  county,  city  and  county,  or  state  authorities 
respectively.  In  counties  having  a  population  of  over  20,000  the  boards  of 
county  commissioners,  and  in  cities  and  counties  operating  under  Article  XX 
of  the  Constitution,  the  authority  performing  like  duties  to  those  of  county 
commissioners,  shall  establish'  and  maintain  workhouses  or  proper  facilities 
for  the  detention  and  employment  of  men  convicted  of  non-support  of  women 
and  children.  Any  sums  of  money  earned  by  them  or  collected  for  their 
labor  by  the  authorities  in  charge  of  such  workhouses  or  facilities  shall  be 
used  for  the  maintenance  of  the  fund  necessary  to  be  expended  by  the  county 

34 


or  city  and  county  in  carrying  out  the  provisions  of  this  act.  The  board  of 
commissioners  of  the  state  penitentiary  and  reformatory  shall  make  such 
similar  provision  as  to  said  board  seems  most  practicable  to  profitably  employ 
all  persons  committed  to  such  prisons  for  non-support  of  women  or  children, 
and  any  sums  received  for  such  labor  shall  be  used  for  the  maintenance  of 
the  fund  provided  by  the  state  for  compliance  with  the  provisions  of  this 
act.  This  act  shall  be  liberally  construed  for  the  protection  of  the  child,  the 
home  and  the  state,  and  in  the  interest  of  public  morals  and  for  the  preven- 
tion of  poverty  and  crime. 

VII 

SECTIONS  OF  THE  REPORT  OF  THE  COMMISSION  TO  CODIFY  AND  REVISE  THE  LAWS 
OF  OHIO  RELATIVE  TO  CHILDREN  RECOMMENDING  A  STATUTE  ON  WIDOWS' 
PENSIONS. 

Section  1683-2.     Support  of  Women  and  Children  in  Certain  Cases. 

For  the  partial  support  of  women  whose  husbands  are  dead,  or  become 
permanently  disabled  for  work  by  reasons  of  physical  or  mental  infirmity,  or 
whose  husbands  are  prisoners,  when  such  women  are  poor,  and  are  the  moth- 
ers of  children  under  the  age  of  fourteen  years,  and  such  mothers  and  chil- 
dren have  a  legal  residence  in  any  county  of  the  state,  the  Juvenile  Court 
shall  make  an  allowance  to  each  of  such  women,  as  follows:  Not  to  exceed 
fifteen  dollars  a  month,  when  she  has  but  one  child  under  the  age  of  fourteen 
years,  and  if  she  has  more  than  one  child  under  the  age  of  fourteen  years, 
it  shall  not  exceed  fifteen  dollars  a  month  for  the  first  child  and  seven  dol- 
lars a  month  for  each  of  the  other  children  under  the  age  of  fourteen  years. 
The  order  making  such  allowance  shall  not  be  effective  for  a  longer  period 
than  six  months,  but  upon  the  expiration  of  such  period,  said  court  may  from 
time  to  time,  extend  such  allowance  for  a  period  of  six  months  or  less,  pro- 
vided the  home  of  such  woman  has  first  been  visited  by  a  probation  officer  or 
other  competent  person. 

Section  1683-3.     Amount  of  Allowance. 

Such  allowance  shall  be  made  by  the  Juvenile  Court,  only  upon  the  follow- 
ing conditions:  First:  the  child  or  children  for  whose  benefit  the  allowance  is 
made,  must  be  living  with  the  mother  of  such  child  or  children;  Second:  the 
allowance  shall  be  made  only  when  in  the  absence  of  such  allowance,  the 
mother  would  be  required  to  work  regularly  away  from  her  home  and  chil- 
dren, and  when  by  means  of  such  allowance  she  will  be  able  to  remain  at 
home  with  her  children,  except  that  she  may  be  absent  not  more  than  one 
day  a  week  for  work;  Third:  the  mother,  must  in  the  judgment  of  the  Juvenile 
Court,  be  a  proper  person,  morally,  physically  and  mentally,  for  the  bringing 
up  of  her  children;  Fourth:  such  allowance  shall  in  the  judgment  of  the  court 
be  necessary  to  save  the  child  or  children  from  neglect  and  to  avoid  the 
breaking  up  of  the  home  of  such  woman;  Fifth:  it  must  appear  to  be  for  the 
benefit  of  the  child  to  remain  with  such  mother;  Sixth:  a  careful  preliminary 
examination  of  the  home  of  such  mother  must  first  have  been  made  by  the 
probation  officer,  an  associated  charities  organization,  humane  society,  or  such 
other  competent  person  or  agency  as  the  court  may  direct,  and  a  written  report 
of  such  examination  filed. 

Section  1683-4.    Age  Limit. 

Whenever  any  child  shall  reach  the  age  of  fourteen  years,  any  allowance 
made  to  the  mother  of  such  child  for  the  benefit  of  such  child  shall  cease. 
The  Juvenile  Court  may,  in  its  discretion,  at  any  time  before  such  child  reaches 
the  age  of  fourteen  years,  discontinue  or  modify  the  allowance  to  any  mother 
and  for  any  child. 

35 


Section  1683-5.     Urgent  Cases. 

Should  the  fund  at  the  disposal  of  the  court  for  this  purpose  be  sufficient 
to  permit  an  allowance  to  only  a  part  of  the  persons  coming  within  the  pro- 
visions of  this  act,  the  Juvenile  Court  shall  select  those  cases  in  most  urgent 
need  of  such  allowance. 

Section  1683-6.    When  No  Allowance  Allowed. 

The  provisions  of  this  act  shall  not  apply  to  any  woman  who,  while  her 
husband  is  imprisoned,  receives  sufficient  of  his  wages  to  support  the  child  or 
children. 

Section  1683-7.     Penalty. 

Any  person  or  persons  attempting  to  obtain  any  allowance  for  a  person 
not  entitled  thereto,  shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  a  misdemeanor  and  on  conviction 
thereof,  shall  be  punished  by  a  fine  of  not  less  than  five  nor  more  than  fifty 
dollars,  or  imprisonment  in  the  county  jail,  for  a  period  of  not  less  than  two 
months,  or  both. 

Section  1683-8.    Records. 

In  each  case  where  an  allowance  is  made  to  any  woman  under  the  pro- 
visions of  this  act,  a  record  shall  be  kept  of  the  proceedings,  and  any  citizen 
of  the  county  may,  at  any  time,  file  a  motion  to  set  aside,  or  vacate  or  modify 
such  judgment  and  on  such  motion  said  Juvenile  Court  shall  hear  evidence,  and 
may  make  a  new  order  sustaining  the  former  allowance,  modify  or  vacate  the 
same,  and  from  such  order,  error  may  be  prosecuted,  or  an  appeal  may  be 
taken  as  in  civil  actions.  If  the  judgment  be  not  appealed  from,  or  error  prose- 
cuted, or  if  appealed  or  error  prosecuted,  and  the  judgment  of  the  Juvenile 
Court  be  sustained  or  affirmed,  the  person  filing  such  motion  shall  pay  all  the 
costs  incident  to  the  hearing  of  such  motion. 

Section   1683-9.     Duty  of   Commissioners   to   Provide   Funds. 

It  is  hereby  made  the  duty  of  the  county  commissioners  to  provide  out  of 
the  money  in  the  county  treasury,  such  sum  each  year  thereafter  as  will  meet 
the  requirements  of  the  court  in  these  proceedings.  To  provide  the  same  they 
shall  levy  a  tax  not  to  exceed  one-tenth  of  a  mill  on  the  dollar  valuation  of 
the  taxable  property  of  the  county.  The  county  treasurer  shall  pay  such  allow- 
ance upon  order  signed  by  the  juvenile  judge. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  5O  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


MAR  20 1935 


JAN  23   1944 


iM 


MAft  1319*?'! 


26flpr*S 


LD  21-100m-8,'34 


